Do You Remember The First Time?
by Changhenge
Summary: An exploration of Syed's past, his four one night stands, his estrangement from home, and the impact that these made on his life.
1. Prologue

**AN Sooooo another multichap fic started before I finish the others *smacks self round head*. This is probably going to be 8 or so chapters looking at Syed's past and imagining some of that intriguing backstory. I realised that as well as Indie's rather superb fic on here, there is also a fic by Glowstix (:D) on lj which I think covers basically the same stuff as this will. Apparently I am just incredibly unoriginal! Anyway, I deliberately haven't read the latter to avoid any unintentional influence, but I apologise in advance for any unintended similarities/coincidences. **

**Also, I have tried to keep as true to the canon backstory as much as possible, but due both of EE's vagueness over certain aspects and my dumbness, I'm sure that I will have made some errors somewhere and apologies for that too.**

**Right so on with the highly derivative, hugely inaccurate story! :D  
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**Reviews are, of course, always welcome.  
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><p><strong>Prologue<strong>

**15a Turpin Road, Walford. 5****th**** April 2011. **

I open the door to let Yusef out, his words echoing around in my head, their meanings clashing with the sight of Dad earlier, competing thoughts of what I think is real and what I know I want. Could they really be ready? Could this moment, an engagement party, a celebration of family and love, could this be a sign to them that despite me, despite the shame I have brought them, the family is not irretrievably damaged, that life, and love carries on? An engagement party. _Tam_'s engagement party. For a couple already married. Maybe this odd situation is just odd enough to let us bypass all that has passed. The door shuts and I turn, watching Christian smooth down the duvet over the freshly made bed.

"Good as new," he declares proudly, smiling as if he had built the bed from scratch rather than just laid some new sheets.

"Weird isn't it?" I say, walking over to him.

"What?"

"Tam. Being married. I can't really get my head round it. He's still little Tambo, who would follow me round everywhere I went, who ran away and hid when the girls at primary school tried playing kiss chase…"

"Didn't look like he was doing much running and hiding earlier," Christian laughed, and I screwed my face up with the effort of trying not to remember.

"Please don't. He's my little brother, I never needed to see _that_."

"Aw, little Tam all grown up. Still, both of their first times? I'm thinking more awkward fumbles and bad timings than swinging from the chandeliers."

"Which is lucky, given the distinct lack of chandeliers in our flat."

"If you really want some, I hear Dagenham Dave—"

"Don't even joke about such things. I think I'm still traumatised from seeing him in the street the other day. He practically pinned me up the wall to quiz me about the 'wear and tear' on the mattress." I hear Christian's barely suppressed snigger and attempt to ignore it. "Still," I add instead, with a sigh and a barely suppressed shudder at memories so nearly forgotten. "awkward fumbles and bad timings sound like a dream wedding night in comparison to some."

Christian is silent, there's not a lot that can render him lost for words but this is pretty much guaranteed to leave him struggling. And to be honest, it's not exactly my first choice of discussion topic either. I bite my lip, wishing I hadn't said anything, wishing that I could just be happy for Tamwar without finding myself reliving the past, until I feel a strong palm stroke back my hair and a pair of lips press gently into my head.

"You know you can always talk to me, about that stuff, if you want."

And I smile appreciatively, cautiously. "Maybe later. If you're sure you want to listen?"

"To you? Always."

"So, was your first time all awkward fumbles then?" I ask, a desire to know mixed with a wish to rid my mind of some guilt-wrenching memories.

"As if. I was a hot young thing of course." He grins, with irresistible arrogant pride.

"Of course."

"And he was a _fine_, older man who was very good at letting his experience show." I raise an eyebrow, trying to keep my face as nonchalant as possible, but Christian's hand tickles under my chin and drags my eyes to him. "Jealous?"

"As if." I laugh. "If he was an 'older man' when you are a 'hot young thing' then I'm guessing he's pretty passed it now. If he's still alive." I add mercilessly.

"Cheeky bugger." And I laugh at the outraged look of shock that crosses over his face. "Although that said, you were probably not even out of nappies when I started…Shit that's depressing. Let's change topic!" He looked at me, his whole demeanour suddenly quieter. "What was your first time like then? You know, your real first time."

"You know." I reply edgily. "I told you. Awkward, fast. Unfortunate repercussions." And already in my mind I can feel the cold sensation of tiles against my back, the warmth of breath on my skin. Then freezing cold water on my hands, bile burning in my throat.

"Syed, that's like asking someone what the book they're reading is like and them replying that it is kind of papery and covered in ink. What was he like? Was he nice?"

I snort. "No. He was an arrogant, cocky little shit."

"And you fancied the pants off him obviously."

"Obviously." I sigh. "Except I didn't realise till my hands were halfway down his pants. Look I will tell you about it, but later yeah? But I will." I blink and try my mind to rid the images of bare chests and loose white towels, of tanned skin and all-knowing eyes. When I open them again it is to see Christian looking at me with the softening of eyes that means sympathy and affection and the purest undiluted love.

I smile, awkwardly, and he returns with a tempting grin, a less than subtle hint at his attempts to move away from the awkward past and onto the heated now. He steps into me, and his arms begin their familiar path to enclose me within.

"So," he murmurs into my ear, his hands reaching round my waist, his body pressed up tight against mine. "What did _you_ do when the girls played kiss chase?"

"Just ran faster than them. It could be hard work though, getting away from them all. I was quite the catch at my primary school."

"Oh I bet you were. Bet I could catch you though."

"Somehow I don't think I'd be trying all that hard to get away. In fact I have the distinct feeling I might develop some kind of cramp."

"Mmmm…then I might just have to massage it away, right? With your expert help of course."

"Come to think of it, I can kind of feel a twinge coming along right now…"

He leans in even nearer, his voice a low seductive murmur that bypasses my mind and races straight to my groin. "Race you to the shower then."

"You're on." And I free myself from his arms, running happily into the bathroom, all thoughts of the fumbling of past hands, the gasping of past mouths and the pressing of past bodies evaporate away, rising like steam from the heated water of the shower.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

**Maughan library, King's College London. 23****rd**** March 2005. **

I turn the pages of the textbook methodically, steadily, the pages passing in front of my unseeing eyes, the words and numbers a blur of smudged ink, my head aching, my hands shaking.

This was essentially all Nathaniel's fault. It was pretty much all down to him.

It was Nath who had suggested joining the cricket team in the first place, him who had spotted the poster in freshers week and suggested to me, no _told _me more like it, that we had to join.

"We need to meet more people, not just these random fuckers that we get assigned to live next to in halls."

"Hey! I'm one of those 'random fuckers' that you got assigned to," I moaned half-heartedly.

"Nah, you're cool. But seriously dude, we should go sign up, it sounds like fun, nothing too serious and we'll get to _expand our social circle _like we keep being told this university bollocks is all about."

His eyes shone like nothing I had ever seen before, glints of light sparkling like drops of dew in the dawn light and I agreed readily, because I enjoyed playing cricket and I wanted to meet people. That was all. Two and a half years later, nearly two years after Nath had got bored and found some other new club, fencing I think, or water polo perhaps, something incongruous that only he would see as normal, I was still there. It was just part of my routine now. Wednesday afternoons meant practice, matches every other Sunday and then once or twice a week there was sitting in the union with Khalid or Mark or Tony, chatting, complaining heartily about the 9am lectures (_But seriously, they expect you not just to be up but to be capable of rational, logical, thought? What kind of a hellhole is this place?_) or joking around about the respective success and failures of Pakistan, England or South Africa (_Yeah but I have a really good feeling about the Ashes this year, seriously. What, that you lot aren't gonna get twatted over 5-0? Dream on…)_. Nath was right of course. I had met people, made friends. It was casual and easy and fun.

At least it was, until last term, when Danny joined.

Cocky. Especially for a fresher. Thinking he knew it all just because he'd spent a year overseas somewhere, _spending Daddy's money pretending to save the world_, sneered Tony and we all nodded. _That _type. Discussions in the union soon ceased to be about the latest England batting collapse or the appalling music in the bar last night but instead took the form of a litany of complaints against Danny.

_Talks too much_, Khalid moaned. _Arrogant_, chimed in Mark, _Thinks he's God's gift_, agreed Tony. _Always got to be the centre of attention_, I added, thinking with annoyance of him striding proudly around the changing rooms after his shower, everything on display. We couldn't kick him out, the club was open to all, that's the way it worked, but I silently waited for him to move on, to take his powerful batting and gym toned body away from my club, my haven of sanity amidst the maelstrom of third year life.

But he didn't leave. Instead I found my allies gradually softening their stance. _He's not so bad when you get to know him_, admitted Tony. _He is a good batsman I suppose_, hedged Khalid, _He's quite funny actually_, added Mark. And so I tried, I really did. I tried to be nice, to be polite. I'd put on my best smile and try to be charming but still he looked at me like I was…I dunno, like I was a strange animal in the wild that he had to categorise or something. And he still strutted round the changing room with no respect for anyone else or any sense of dignity or anything.

No, I definitely didn't like Danny. And I didn't trust him either, so I made sure I kept my eye on him, not letting him get away with everything like he thought he could.

And then today happened. And with that thought, the bile rises and a chill starts to spread over my skin as that stomach-lurching feeling that had no name and no place in my body renewed itself with vigour.

Bloody Nathaniel. It was because of his text that I was even still there after all. We'd finished practice and I guess I'd been a bit slower than usual getting showered and changed, but anyway I was still sitting at the end of the bench pulling on my jeans and drying my hair while the other guys were already pretty much dressed.

Nath had been away for a bit, some family crisis or other so he'd gone home to Leeds to sort it out. So obviously when he sent me a text saying he was back and desperate for a pint, well I had to reply immediately. It was only polite, and I'd missed hanging out with him. I just hadn't realised how much until I got his text. I could feel the grin edging over my face as I typed my reply, _See you in the union, 5 mins_, and I barely registered the calls of goodbye as the rest of the team trooped out and left. Too engrossed in my thoughts I didn't hear the hiss of the taps come to a halt, or the pad of wet footsteps leave the shower and enter the changing rooms.

It wasn't until a shadow fell over the bench that I registered his presence. A tall muscular presence. A naked presence, the white towel that was slung easily around his hips serving merely to highlight the rest of his bare flesh, the tan of his stomach, the odd sprinkling of rough hairs over his chest, the beads of water that rested at the roots of his shaggy blonde locks before sliding down the curve of his neck. I told my eyes to look away. I ordered my feet to move, but my disobedient body was pinned to the floor, my wayward eyes glued to his frame.

Danny pulled the towel off in one swift movement, ruffling his hair and tossing it to the side, finally, thankfully breaking the spell and I turned to my bag at the side, begging my heart to slow down and my breath to settle.

He laughed. An annoying cocky know-it-all laugh.

"So, you're not going to look at me now then? Quite happy to do it when you think I don't notice? Your eyes out on fucking stalks."

I shove clothes quickly into my bag, urging stupid uncooperative fingers to move faster. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Really? My imagination is it?"

"Yeah. It _is_." _Come on come on_ I urged myself, _just get my stuff sorted and get out of here_.

"So I just imagine the way your head goes spinning round like the fucking exorcist girl whenever I come out of the shower then?"

"Yes." The word is staccato and sharp, spat out and cast out, unwelcome in my mouth.

"Come on Syed…Stop fucking about. You can't pretend forever."

I turned my back on him, shutting my ears to him, shutting my eyes. "You've got it wrong. I'm not interested, I'm not—"

"Not what?"

"Not...anything. I'm just...I'm not."

"No. Course not." His hand reached to my chin, forcefully twisting my face to turn back to him, forcing my eyes to spring open with the shock of it, making me look at the way his body shone with moisture under the fluorescent lights, coercing my brain to note the sheer unfairness that the lights that make everyone else look like shit merely serve to make _him _look like some figure from an underwear ad or something. Just without the underwear and oh _shit_. I turned away again, blinking and staring at the random assortment of unclaimed sports gear lying in the corner, telling my eyes to focus on the scrunch of the balled up t-shirt, the hideous unwanted shorts, but my treacherous vision is tainted and all I can see is the bright expanse of tanned muscular flesh, ever present as if burnt onto my retinas for all eternity.

"Like what you see?" He smirked, he fucking smirked. _I hate him I hate him I hate him_.

"SHUT UP!" And he grabbed my wrist, pulling me up so we stood face to face, the heat of his body pulsating over me in waves, the threat of him hitting my fragile self-control again and again and again.

"Make me." His eyes were gleaming flints, taunting and refusing to let my gaze falter. Staring at me like they could creep inside my skin and pull out all that was lurking within, all that I have worked so hard to keep hidden away.

I kissed him.

I yanked my wrist from his hand and grabbed his neck, my mouth driving onto his too red lips, forcing a world of righteous anger and shameful need to explode as I kissed him.

No holds barred, he pushed back at me, stronger, letting nothing be won or lost without his command. My head hit the cold hard tiles of the wall, my legs rubbed painfully against the rough wood of the benches at my side but my hands were grasping at smooth damp skin, sliding desperately over the curve of muscles and the solid ridge of unyielding bone.

It was his weight that hit me the most. He was unavoidably male, even with eyes shut there was no escaping this, no escaping him. The few girls that I had kissed had been pliant and soft and I was nervous of their seeming fragility, not knowing where the limits should be drawn. I would pull away, scared of rules that no-one had ever told me but everyone else seemed just to know. But this was different. Danny was here and everywhere and pressing back so hard into me that I had to push back myself, our bodies battling, as if the winner wasn't already known and crowned.

My brain slowly started to wake up. And panic. Suddenly screaming at my body to halt, to run away, to pull off him and curse him and rescue myself while I still could. There was still time then, still a moment of opportunity that could have been seized, a second chance to stop this insane madness. I could have pulled away from him and cursed him for forcing me into such a thing. I could have looked at him with disdain and told him that this might be what he had wanted but it would never be for me. I could have stopped and it would have become a minor thing. A petty small issue that could have been hidden and forgotten. Nothing worthy of a comment to Nathaniel or anyone. I could have stopped.

I couldn't stop.

His hand in my hair, tightly bunched up in his fists, holding so hard and so tight I felt my scalp burn. And then his other hand, running between our bodies, running inside my jeans, sliding inside my boxers, grabbing me and stroking me and it was too late. I had nowhere to run.

I reached for him too, and if my eyes had not already shut, I know they would have closed now for sure, as the little tiny voice that I can never quite shut out started to crow and call in its mocking fashion, whispering _so why does this feel so right?_

I didn't know what I was doing, I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing. My hands aped his movements, recreating the actions that I had done to myself in secret late night moments, thinking of secret unthinkable thoughts. But I could barely pay attention as the feel of his hand on me threatened to tip me over into oblivion. I was pressed up uncomfortably against a wall, I had a wooden bench threatening to impale itself into my leg, I had my hands on some other blokes cock and I didn't have a bloody clue what I was doing. I had never felt more like a pathetic, unknowing virgin in all my life and even then I couldn't stop my brain from cursing oh why did it have to be bloody _Danny_, of all people, who would witness my weakness and my shame.

I pretended not to hear the unasked for keens that fell from me and into his mouth. But I couldn't hide the way my body shudder and trembled, as I came into his hand. I continued to stroke him, awkwardly, urgently, needing to make him come, needing to feel it, to see it, needing it to happen before the fog of lust fully lifted to leave the dismay of clarity.

"Fuck Syed," he cried at last, and I dared to open an eye to see his face, and then wished I hadn't. His lips kiss-swollen and more tempting than I could cope with. My chest heaved with desperate need, long denied breaths slowly filling and releasing.

I looked at him in silence, trying to deciper the look in his eyes, and then turned away, pulling a jumper over my head, grabbing my nearly packed bag and shoes and running, the soft pad of my bare feet hitting the cool tiles of the floor.

"Syed, wait—"

I didn't stop. I didn't listen, I ran blind, hoping against hope that I didn't see anyone until I fell into the door to the toilets. I ran the tap in the sink, and threw my hands underneath the water, washing and washing, watching the waste water as it circled round and disappeared down the drain. Bile rose in my stomach and I gripped tight onto the sink, fearing for a moment that I might be sick into it. I swallowed it down. I swallowed it all down, forcing slow rational thoughts back into my head.

Need to go somewhere. Where? The flat? No. Almost certain to be people there, people asking questions, looking at me, knowing. My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out, trembling fingers stabbing pitifully at the keys. Nath. Shit.

_Oy Masood, where r u? Late again fucker. U owe me a pint. _

The bile rose and fell again and I leant against the sink, seeking assurances from its solid form. Not Nathaniel. No way could I see Nathaniel right now. I thought of Tony and Mark and Khalid, of me trying to find a way to tell them that I am never coming back to the team again, a reason for leaving them in the lurch halfway through the season. I thought of Nathaniel. I thought of Danny and I dug my nails into the palm of my hand, feeling the pressure dig into the skin, the sharp mindless ache distracting my body from the dull helpless pain within.

The library, I decided, with determined force. I'll get cracking on next week's lectures. Concentrate on things that are important. Not on stupid pointless games that just distract you from the things that matter in life. I shoved my phone in my pocket, text left unanswered. I pulled my shoes on, splashed water on my face and looked in the mirror. Syed Masood, Business Management graduate. A success. That's what I'm going to be, and nothing is going to fuck that up.

I walked briskly to the library, not glancing over my shoulder for a second, not even thinking to. I pulled out a book, I turned the pages, I studied.

And here I am.

I blink again, and turn to a new chapter. _Concentrate on the figures_, I tell myself. The words might move and change, those flighty unreliable words. But numbers, now they always stay the same. They are dependable, add 2 and 2 together and they always make 4. I read the chapter slowly, mumbling the words out loud, writing the numbers down carefully on my paper, thoughts gradually coming together, and the smile slowly returns to my face. It all makes sense, it all seems so simple. Mum and Dad, they try hard but they are missing out on some big money here, getting some proper returns for all their hard work and effort. I see what they can do, I see what _I _can do, to make the business a real success, to make them proud of me. A small investment here leading to a massive return later on. It's so obvious. I can't stop from laughing quietly with relief and joy, jotting down more and more figures on the paper, seeing how easily they stack up. I can't believe I didn't see it before. But now, now I'm going to do my part in making the Masood name stand out proud and bold.

Everything is going to be brilliant.


	3. Interlude A

**AN: Erm yeah. Massive apologies, I have been completely awol for a wee while. The good news is that I should have the next few updates of this coming up in the not too distant future. At some point I might even get _Things Left Unsaid_ and _The Nightwatchman_ updated. Apologies for updating this one first, I know it won't be most people's first choice! I think it is continuing to be quite derivative, so apologies to Indie especially if I continue to plagarise any of her far superior work. Also, I have tried to keep this canon compliant, but I've not been watching much recently so if there are any massive discrepencies, that may well be why...  
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**A quick note re the layout too, every couple of chapters or so there will be these brief interludes, back with Christian, all continuing timewise as a direct continuation from the prologue (which took place just before the Argee Bhajee roof collapse.) Interludes are fairly short and very unplotty, chapters are pretty long. Hopefully it will all make sense as you read!  
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><p><strong>Interlude #1<strong>

**15a Turpin Road, Walford. Tuesday 5****th**** April 2011.  
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I run and stumble into the bathroom, tripping over my feet and trying to grab the towel rail in a rather futile attempt to stay steady. I miss and end up sliding down instead, falling to the floor. Just before I hit the cold tiles however, I feel a strong arm curl round my waist and breaking my fall.

"Woah, easy tiger."

"I had it under control."

Christian snorts and merely tightens his arms around me as we sit on the floor, his breath hot against my neck, his voice low and laughing. "Yes, I can see that you required absolutely no help from me whatsoever."

"Exactly," I nod, my body moulding back into his. "I just wanted to make you feel useful."

"You're very kind."

"So I've heard."

"I can be even more useful if you want."

"Go on then, make yourself useful." And I leant cpmpletely back into him as he slid the zipper down and ran his hands inside my jeans, cupping me and then stroking me slowly, steadily, quietly.

My eyes fluttered shut and I let random thoughts fly silently through my mind. Relaxed and quiet, only his heavy breathing and my gasps to filter through. How it feels to lie in Christian's arms, how sitting uncomfortably on the bathroom floor can somehow still feel like a small piece of peaceful bliss, how weird it is that both me and my brother should find our perfect partners in the least likely places, how maybe Masood weddings are always destined to be strange and maybe it's best for Shabs that she stays out in Pakistan and doesn't get involved in one here herself, unless of course there is something that she hasn't told us either and may—

"Okay. You're thinking again."

Christian's voice startles me out of my daze, his hand ceasing its movement too.

I look up at him shamefaced. "Sorry. Carry on, please?"

He just laughs and presses a chaste kiss to my lips. "It's okay baby. Lots of stuff on your mind. Jump in the shower and talk to me about it. Before I start worrying that I've lost my skills."

I would never have guessed before living with him that one of my favourite places to talk to someone would be the shower. I was always leaping in and leaping out, trying to get washed as quickly as possible to avoid being _too _horrifically late after another accidental lie in. And while it hadn't taken long to get used to the longer, more _thorough _showers that Christian and I would indulge in, I hadn't anticipated just how much Christian would enjoy chatting in here too. Me in the shower, him sitting in the bathroom, cup of tea in hand, listening to me go on about my family or work or whatever, while he sits and drinks and listens and makes sympathetic noises and helpful suggestions (or sometimes 'helpful' ones that I usually pretend not to have heard. Even if it does mean I sometimes have to turn away to hide my bitten back smile). It is just another of the things that I didn't know I needed but can no longer imagine life without.

I let the water run till it hits just the right temperature and I can feel it warming me up slowly, edging inside from my goosebumped skin.

Over the hum of the shower and the patter of the water hitting the tiled floor, I hear Christian settle himself back down and take a long gulp of tea before starting to talk.

"So Sy, spill. What thoughts are currently occupying that pretty head of yours?"

"Okay, well. Don't get mad or anything…"

"Always a good start Sy."

"It's just…I feel bad for my mum."

"You what?" His voice raises several pitches, and it's at times like this I realise why the whole shower thing works. It's always that bit easier to say stuff that I know he doesn't want to hear when I can't actually see his face, and when the running water can mask the worst of his mumbled bitter asides.

"You know how much she wanted all this, for all of us to get married and to have the big weddings, for everyone to see. She wanted us to make her proud…"

The snort from outside the shower and the muffled curses are not lost in the haze of the shower but I continue anyway.

"I know what you think, but whatever way you look at it, she has ended up with me messing up what was supposed to be the perfect wedding, Shabs out in Pakistan, no-one knows when she is ever going to come back, Tam getting married on the sly…well none of it is what she planned is it?"

"Don't worry I'm sure she's already planning how to run Kamil's life for him. Listen to yourself Sy, I know she's still your mum, and I know you still love her and God, you _know_ how much I love how forgiving and loving you are, but for fuck's sake, she's brought it all on herself. And maybe when she finds out about Tam she'll start to realise that."

I sigh and rub the water through my hair, it runs over me and down me and runs into my ears, temporarily blocking all sounds except the constant pulse thumping through my body and the echo of thoughts bouncing round my brain.

Christian is right of course, except that he is also wrong. Or maybe he isn't wrong, not exactly, but still missing vital parts of information that you need in order to see it the way I do. He tries, mostly by staying quiet when I know he wants to scream or by stroking my hair when I know he wants to punch the wall. But he doesn't get it and he can't get it, because he can't understand the words that come from both decades of Masood family life and countless centuries of history and past, and I am the world's worst interpreter.

Maybe it's my fault, maybe I shouldn't expect him to get it. Maybe I shouldn't hope that one day my family will accept me. Us. Maybe I am just wishing for the impossible again, wanting it all, not satisfied with what I've got. That's always been my problem, my irredeemable failing; wanting more, always wanting more. Maybe I just want too much. Maybe there is no maybe about it.

But she always said to _aim high_ (and he said _try not to disappoint us again_), and it was always worth it, the late nights studying, all that seemingly endless toil, just to see that look of pride, hear the proud delight in her voice as she wrapped her warm arms around me, _see I told you you could do it_ (and his quick silent nod, the absence of censure that could sometimes sound better than thousands of honeyed words of praise). And really, it's not so different from Christian's _be the best you you can be_ spiel that he reels off to his new clients, as they stand sweating and aching under his expert gaze. Or from the quieter murmured words of encouragement that brush against my skin in the darkness, _I believe in you Sy, you can do whatever you put your mind to_.

They all encouraged me to hope, but they forgot that they cannot prevent what I hope for.


	4. Chapter 2

**AN Okay here is some actual plot to add to the Interlude published earlier. There seem to be an overload of parantheses and italics in here too. IDEK.  
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**Thoughts and comments are always very welcome.  
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><p><strong>Chapter Two<strong>

**McDonalds, Leeds City Centre. Sunday 29****th**** October 2006. 5.25am.**

I swill the coffee round the paper cup, watching the murky contents flow round, a small whirlpool forming in the centre before settling back. I lift the cup and take a gulp, wincing at the bitterness, and at the burn in my mouth. It's probably won some kind of award for crap coffee, for its ability to simultaneously burn the lining of your throat and make you wretch. I glance across quickly at the other lone figures sitting at plastic tables, eating plastic food, drinking gut-rottingly awful plastic drinks and try to work out if they are struggling too, but no-one's expression gives much away. A motley assortment of night shift finishers and predawn starters staring blankly into the day that dawns ahead, the odd student, laptop on the one side, coffee and McMuffin at the other, and then the shifty looking loners, awkwardly burning their tongues as they stare into space.

The door swings open, letting the cold air and rain fly in, disturbing the air-conditioned sameness of inside. Loud shrieking excited voices obliterate the previous quiet buzz as a gaggle of night-clubbers fall into the restaurant. I look up, watching their easy familiarity, the frequent easy touches that go between them all as they drape on each other's necks, tired bodies and wired minds. Long bare legs poke out from the tiniest of skirts that attempt to hide nothing at all. I wonder idly if this is a universal girl thing, or if Nathaniel was right when he said that if you grew up in Leeds you developed antifreeze in your blood. Nath. One of the guys yawns and stretches his arms theatrically above his head, his tight sweat tinged, rain soaked t-shirt rising up, flashing bare toned stomach skin, a line of hair falling down from his navel to the waistband of his bowers, riding high and visible above his baggy jeans. The curve of his-.

Stop.

I look back at the dirty liquid slowly congealing in the cup. I focus on the deepset lines scratched into the plastic surface of the table. I drag my hand to my head and scrunch my hair between my fingers. Try harder.

There is glitter on their faces, and glitter falling from their hair onto the floor, sparkling under the unnatural light. Outside is dark and cold as the long night trundles on, the cusp of dawn still a figment of hopeful imagination, but they smell unashamedly of light and music and laughter, of alcohol and smoke and sex, a world I'm supposed not to know of. I lower my head subtly, as if anyone was looking anyway, and try to capture my own scent, to see if my sin has taken some tangible form. I brush down my top, try to smooth away my failings like the creases that remain. As I shake out my arm, a card falls from the pocket of my jacket, dropping to the floor with a silent scream of attention. I lean down and grab it, flustered and quickly, the type mocking me as I see the half familiar name typed so neatly and so proudly upon the pale card. When did he…? I look at it again and read a job title, a purpose. Everything I am not.

The voices of the noisy crowd approach and I move into the corner, hunching my shoulders, turning away from their ebullience and their easy belonging. I have never felt more alone in my whole life.

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

A clean start, I had declared to myself, trying to cleanse myself of the torrent inside. And I wanted silence and solitude and emptiness. Now I wonder sometimes if I had wanted that merely to torture myself, seeking a quietness that could only serve as a constant reminder of what I had lost. No sister screaming, no brother crying, no father chastising or mother shouting and ordering and demanding. I searched for peace, welcoming it and hating it in equal measure. I made a list of things to do. I ordered my mind and ordered my thoughts.

Find a place to live. Done. A tiny bedsit with a tiny kitchen and a shared bathroom down the hall. And a park across the road where if I opened the window I could hear the cries of happy children and stressed out mothers. Sometimes I left it shut.

Find a job. Done. A 'Data Input Assistant' at some property investment place. A temporary job, but a job nonetheless. Taking numbers from one sheet and typing them onto another. A job that required constant attention and headache inducing patience but no brain power and no heart. For the first few weeks I put my head down and typed methodically letting the sound of my fingers on the keyboard permeate through my body.

Find a mosque. Done. A busy friendly mosque where people smiled and prayed and I could smile and pray with them. Deflecting inevitable questions with answers that were just about not lies.

Find some friends. Failed. Well sort of, maybe. But no, not really. I should have, at mosque. But every time a casual friendly face made polite friendly conversation about my family, I felt my body freeze and my smile falter, visions of his angry face clouding my mind, and I would make my excuses and leave. How could I tell a stranger at mosque that my father had cast me out? How could I tell them why? How could I tell them that the worst thing was not his words, nor even that his face was not so much shocked as resigned, like he had been waiting for me to fuck up since the first day he held me? How could I tell them anything when I needed to forget _everything_. So I kept up a small protective guard at mosque and kept myself to myself.

Call Nathaniel. And failed this one too. Occasionally late at night I would find myself holding my phone in my hand, Nathaniel's number on the screen, fingers poised over the button ready to dial. But every time I would pull my hand back at the final moment and shove the phone back in my pocket where it could sit and rest in the new silence that was beginning to feel familiar. With temptation removed I could promise myself that I would call him. Later. When I was more settled. When I knew how to explain to him about that weird last term and my odd behaviour. When I knew how to explain it to myself.

But people at work were nice and friendly, I told myself firmly. At first I had been too involved in my own mind to focus on others, letting only the shallow surface of office banter fall into my ears. The happy confidence of the twenty-somethings, their cheery voices discussing great nights out and bad one night stands reminded me of sitting in the union, in a way that would both make me smile and then wince inside when I realised there was no-one around for me to smile to, no-one to share the roll of eyes or the muffled burst of inappropriate laughter. But there was also the other stuff, the mildly disturbing gossip of children's bowel movements and husband's back problems that came from the older, more motherly types that made listening to Joel and Michael's endless games of Office Shag, Marry, Kill seem suddenly tempting. Yet when several months in, I finally I managed to raise my head, I found they all responded to my practised smile with seemingly sincere and carefree ones of their own. Sometimes they asked politely about my family or my life, but with no sense of needing to know the answers. More often they didn't ask at all, preferring the mindless chatter of gossip and banter, giving me an easy part to play, an easy role to fill. They asked about friends and I shrugged in the way that implies _well of course_, and they asked if I missed my family and I could reply truthfully that I did but we all needed space. They called me Cockney, like I was some East End barrow boy and I would laugh with the relief that that was the nearest that they were ever going to get to knowing me.

Which is why they surprised me on Tuesday, when Angie greeted me in the morning with a cheery "Happy Eid Syed!"

I think I forgot my polite work smile and just gaped awkwardly in confusion. "Thanks. But…how did you…?"

Her friendly plump face creased with delighted smiles. "Oooh so I got it right then! It's down to the kids' school, love, they celebrate everything these days, if it isn't Eid then its Diwali or that Jewish one they have instead of Christmas."

"Hanukah," chimed in Chloe from across the room, pushing her long blonde hair back, lights glinting off the row of mismatched earrings that ran up the side of her ear. "We did it at school too. So have you been fasting all this month, Syed? You kept that quiet."

Angie nodded and winked back at Chloe. "Well it's alright now, he can get back to scoffing those mars bars under his desk now, and thinking we haven't noticed."

I laughed, and smiled the first real smile for many months. "I hadn't realised I was so obvious. But thanks for the good wishes anyway."

"Is that why you're late in today?" Chloe askes, and then as a tint of unexplained redness passed over her cheeks she added quickly, "y'know I just happened to notice earlier that you weren't here."

Ignoring Angie's snort, I smiled politely. Chloe was nice, not that I'd really spoken to her for more than 5 minutes at a time, but nice anyway. "Yeah, I was at mosque first thing. I'm going to stay late to make up the time of course."

"Bless you love, you shouldn't worry, you work harder than anyone else here. Them lazy bastards wouldn't know hard work if it hit 'em over the head with a sledgehammer." Angie's arm extended to encompass the whole of the room, with only a few random half-hearted grunts of disagreement interjected amidst the bustle of chatter attempting to disprove her point. "So Syed," she continued, settling down in her chair with weighted anticipation, as I suddenly realised that this was turning into the longest conversation I had had with someone for months. "You seeing your family at all? It's a bit like your Christmas isn't it, that's what the kids said."

It was an ache that ought not to be unexpected, but it still hit my stomach with unforeseen pain. I tried to fix a smile onto my face, to continue to reply in the light-hearted tone that we have shared, to further this attempt at normal friendly talk. "Well, you know, I'm busy here, and they have a business to run and the family...it's just not always possible…" The words stuttered and sounded horribly unconvincing to my ears, and seemingly to Angie's too, as I spotted her eyes softening and the sympathy within threatened to make me lose all composure.

"You'll be giving them a call though eh? Your mum'll be missing you I'll bet. You kids, you think when you're all grown up that your mum stops worrying about you but they don't, it never stops. You'll always be her baby."

My chest hurt, there was a small aching chill in my stomach and I suddenly become desperately aware of my surroundings. I stared at the dying pot plant on the window, forcing my eyes to focus on the wilting leaves and drooping petals, willing the hot salty rush of tears to stay back behind my eyes. My dignity saved thankfully by Chloe's interjection.

"Yeah well Ange, you could do with telling my mum that I might be her baby yeah but there's no need to treat me like one. Honestly what does she want from me? I'm nearly 21 not 12…"

Chloe's voice continued on but my brain tuned out, letting the flow of familiar words float over me. I could hear Shabnam's voice instead, her high pitched cries of complaint and injustice that made up the musical accompaniment to my homework or revision. I ducked my head and focused harder on the numbers, pressing my fingers firmly onto the keyboard as if all I needed was determination and some passable typing skills and then I could rewrite the past.

All through the day I felt the hard plastic edges of my phone pressing through my pocket and into my skin. I thought of phoning, I thought of hearing her voice answer, I thought of what words I could say and what words I could not and I typed and thought and at some point in the day I found myself standing in the doorway, surrounded by discarded fag-butts, faraway mechanical beeps ringing and ringing in my ear.

"Hello?"

His voice hit me, dragging all the air from my lungs and drying my throat. I struggled to stand, my hand reaching behind to press against the wall, finding relief in the solid rough feel of bricks against my skin.

"Hello? Hello? Anyone there?"

I knew this voice well. He is exasperated, he has no time for this. He is a busy man with a business to run and a family to guide.

I swallowed. My mouth wouldn't open. I couldn't speak.

He hung up, a loud click and then nothing.

It's the same, it's always the same. The repeating ringing in my ears of his voice, not shouting, but cold in its insistence that I should _just go_, that I should _never contact your mother_, that I am _a disgrace of a son_. And a slam of a door and the silence of loneliness as the traffic whizzes past.

I walked back inside, cursing my stupidity with every step, that I had failed to think of anything except my own need and foolishness. The chill inside me started to freeze over. I walked to my desk, I sat at my computer, I counted the hours till I could go ho-, go to the bedsit.

As 5.30 ticked round I vaguely heard sounds of voices asking if I wanted to join them for a drink and I vaguely heard my own voice reply with plausible sounding excuses, biding them goodbye as I walked down the road. But the bedsit no longer seemed so appealing, and my feet instead found unfamiliar roads to walk down, strange places to visit, new sights to fill my eyes and to distract my mind. A small closed down cinema, a Russian food shop with incomprehensible signs, a toyshop with a fully functioning model railway set that was almost exactly the same as the one we used to have in the attic, and I nearly grabbed my phone to take a picture and send to Tambo, before I remembered again and looked away. A bar, already busy with the sound of post work drinks and excited chatter. I glanced again and _oh_. I quickened my walk and turned my eyes away, pretending I hadn't seen the sign and hadn't noticed the men and their words and their actions.

I went back to my bedsit and I didn't think of them. I went to work the next day and didn't imagine the bar. I slept at night and didn't dream of faces, remembered and created, or half glimpses of bodies, real and imagined. For four nights and four days I told myself that I didn't think of it or them at all. Then yesterday. All day in the bedsit, watching the walls, listening to my neighbours argue and shag and argue some more. Staring out at the rain-sodden park, feeling an incurable, endless, unceasing itch in my body. A desperation to escape, to leave all of this behind, to stop from thinking and hurting and feeling so bloody alone. The chill in my body was now a yawning ice-filled chasm and I shivered as I pulled myself down under the paltry thin duvet.

The rain halted. The streetlights came on. Voices filled the outside as evening dawned and I found myself rising, washing, dressing. Hands mindlessly following an ordered routine as they found fresh clothes and pulled them onto my clean body. Feet thoughtlessly find themselves filling shoes and leaving the building, taking roads that my brain had sworn it had no memory of.

It wasn't until I was leaning across a bar, trying to have my voice heard over the music, trying to ask politely for an orange juice, that my brain belatedly joined my rebellious body. And by then it was too late.

I sat on a bar stool, gripping the cold glass tightly in my hand. It was almost like the union, I decided. Like sitting with Khalid or Tony, like listening to Nath's over-excited chatter. The feel of cold glass against my fingers, the sharpness of the juice in my mouth, the chatter and music filling the spaces between our talk and our laughter. But I found no talk and no laughter from my mouth. I was alone. Alone in a mass of men. Men pressing bodies against men, men pushing tongues into men and I couldn't stop looking and I couldn't stop from looking away. Pushing myself down into the stool as if I could shrink myself down and fade away. I didn't dare to see if anyone was looking at me, too scared that they might be, too scared that they might not. I focused on the drink in my hand, on the weight of the ice-cubes against my tongue, reminding myself how to swallow. _This is stupid,_ I decided, I don't want this. I don't need this. I don't fit in. I'm not like this. I gulped down the final mouthfuls of juice, and put the glass down on the table, rather more forcefully than I intended I realised, as I heard it clunk and bang against the wood. _Stupid fucking idea_, I thought, but at least it wasn't too late, at least I could just leave and nothing had happened and everything was fine.

A hand on my shoulder.

"Leaving so soon?"

I halted, feet suddenly unsure of themselves. I turned, eyes warily finding a pair of smiling eyes in return, their darkness a strange incongruity to the tight blonde curls on his head. And the pale dusting of fair hairs that ran from the hand on my shoulder, up his forearm and over his flexed biceps. I hastily looked up, raising my eyes but seeing his mouth, reddened lips quirked in a smile and I felt my own mouth run suddenly and inexplicably dry. He was looking at me like I ought to be saying something and I belatedly realised that I ought to answer his question, so I obliging and politely opened my mouth but instead of words all I heard was.

"Erm…"

He smiled, crinkles appearing at the edges of his mouth and his eyes and I tried not to look again at his arms.

"Yeah, not your scene I take it."

"Erm, no. Not really." I stumbled out the words in a voice that I barely recognised, my eyes flicking from his arms to his eyes to his chest and his legs and his mouth and his arms and his mouth and oh fuck. He stepped nearer, one hand still clasping my shoulder. I could feel his fingers pressing into my skin and for some reason the feeling sent shivers down through my spine.

"Do you want to go somewhere else?" He asked, his voice lower. "I live just round the corner if you fancied a coffee or something?"

It suddenly became all too apparent that my stupid thoughtless body had not anticipated any further than arriving here tonight, and now I had to find the right words. I rummaged desperately inside my brain, seeking out polite words of refusal, _no thanks_ or _not tonight_, _I have to get up early tomorrow_, _I have to go home_.

"Yeah. Okay." I muttered instead, and he smiled.

He did live just round the corner. And I felt a slight sense of relief. As if that somehow made everything a bit better.

I followed him in, eyes noting the neat arrangement of books, the assortment of framed photos on the wall, the rich coloured rugs on the floor, and I suddenly thought of my cold bare bedsit and felt the shame of failure running hard through my blood.

"It's Paul by the way," He nodded, tossing his keys to the side and smiling over his shoulder at me.

"I'm Syed," I replied, trying not to let my thoughts come out. Thoughts like, _what the fuck am I doing in some guy's house when I didn't even know his name_. Thoughts that should override everything else but yet I couldn't stop other thoughts, other feelings, other memories. Wondering what those hands would feel like on me, gripping and rubbing and holding me down, wondering if his thighs are as strong-looking as his arms, if they have the same sprinkling of fair hairs. I felt dizzy and lost and I stretched my arm out to find something solid to lean on. A table. Good. A solitary photo stood there, next to my hand. Older, and more tattered than the other glossy prints, and I looked at two children, covered in mud, each hand in hand with an older woman and all three of them beaming with delight at the hidden photographer.

His, _Paul's_, hands are back resting on my shoulders as he looks over at the pic.

"Cute kid wasn't I?" he murmurs low in my ear.

I tried to think of a good response, of anything to say, anything to think except how good his body feels pressed up behind mine like this, of how much my body has longed for this, for someone, for some man, of how much I need this, with a desperation that scares me so much I can barely stand upright.

"Do your family live near here?"

His voice sounded like he could be from Leeds I thought. It reminded me a bit of Nath's, but deeper. More like how Nath sounded in the early morning, when I would meet him for morning lectures, all sleep dazed and croaky from lack of use.

"Yeah. Well probably. They used to. Haven't seen them in years. I'm a bit of a black sheep you see."

And a sudden cold pain filled me inside, aching wordless fear. The fear that sent me running here in the first place, that I spend all day trying to avoid. I felt sick and I needed to leave. Right that instant. I turned round to say this, to leave, to just fucking get out of there, but turning meant I had to see his mouth and then feel his mouth press on mine, and his body press into mine, and his arms capture me and hold me and the sickness falls and is replaced by a thousand pinpricks of pure energy and I forgot to leave.

He undressed me, using those big hands and long nimble fingers to undress me deftly, stripping me of the clothes I had found only a few hours before. I tried to undress him, with awkward touches, fingers shaking with some combination of lust and petrifying fear.

Eventually we both lay naked on the bed, _his _bed, and I was hit with the realisation that this was worse than just wanking off some bloke in the shower, _worse or better_, my mind whispered and I didn't know how to answer. But there were more questions asked, in Paul's low voice and I didn't know how to answer those either.

"What do you want Syed?"

As if it was so simple. As if I could divide everything easily into two categories, want and not want. As if I could possibly know. As if I didn't want what I shouldn't think of, what I couldn't have, what I didn't want, what I didn't know about. My tongue lay thick and heavy and useless in my mouth, my thoughts clogging up in my brain and I tried to answer because I was trying to be polite but I wanted so much and—

"I don't…I mean I, erm," I stuttered stupidly and bit my lip in frustration.

He laughed quietly and found my lips again, and I tried to prove that my tongue was not quite so useless, which seemed to have some effect as he moaned softly into my mouth. He tasted of cigarettes and stale beer and I could smell his aftershave, strong and heavy, filling my nose, my lungs, intoxicating me, overwhelming me.

"So cute," he whispered into my skin. "So sweet. Syed, I want to blow you, do you think that might be something that you want?"

Finally a question I could answer and without words, my head nodding far too eagerly, my body shaking already as he grinned and sank below, his hot mouth covering over my skin, and then closing around me. _Fuck_.

I'd thought about this before. Of course I had. Again and again. Don't all guys? An easy fantasy of a nameless, faceless someone who occasionally can be a very specific someone but it's still okay, well it's wrong of course to think of such things but sometimes, as long as you only think it then it's okay and it's just thinking about what it might feel like and so it doesn't matter who is giving it, does it? It's not like my mind would wander to what it would feel like to give, to be down there, to have the weight of another man's cock resting in my mouth, filling my mouth, wondering what they would smell like, taste like, what it would feel like to have them come, for me to make them come.

I could hear some not so gentle whimpers filling the air around the bed and I swiftly threw my arm over my mouth, my teeth digging into my flesh and I wondered if there would be marks there tomorrow, teeth-marks there to match the bruises from fingers on my hips, the rash from stubble on my thighs. Marks of my sin and of my shame. I begged that they would not be there. I hoped that they would._ I don't want this I want this I don't I do I want I want I want._

Teeth dug harder, fingers gripped tighter onto sheets. Eyes screwed shut to let the darkness take over, to shut out everything except this feeling, to close off all thoughts. I shuddered and shook and bit and gripped harder to stop from falling but the sheet pulled up and my flesh collapsed and my muffled cry echoed too loudly in my ears.

He moved up the bed, his body heavy on mine and I welcomed the weight, the feel of him, his hardness pushing against my skin and thrusting against my stomach, his wet mouth on my neck, on my chin, on my lips. He tasted different and it took my confused aching head a while to realise why and then I tried to pull back but his strong hand was firm on my neck and I couldn't escape and then I didn't want to escape anymore. I kissed harder, I wanted more, as he pushed on me, our skins rubbing together, damp and hot and he came, almost silently, with a single gasp into my mouth.

He moved gently to the side, but his hand slowly stroked through my hair and just for a moment, for the briefest of seconds I felt the warmth again, I felt the cold ice start to melt inside, I felt that aching chasm inside start to cave in.

He rolled away.

My body ached. My arm was sore. My stomach was wet. My head hurt.

"D'ya smoke?" He asked, pulling a cigarette out of a packet and offering me another.

"No."

"Don't mind if I?" I shook my head. This was his house, his bed. I felt the sickness rise inside me. "Ta. Filthy habit really. I ought to quit but y'know how it is." He grinned and that mouth taunted me with its curve and its threat of what it could say, of what it had done. I thought of the picture on the table and my stomach started to heave.

"I have to go." And I tried to get up, but my legs were entangled in the sheets, and I ended up half falling out of the bed in my urgency, quickly throwing on clothes, never looking back, mustn't ever look back. I could hear him stand up, and I near ran down the corridor, not looking at the picture of a happy family ripped apart.

A hand on my shoulder again and my whole body tensed with fear.

"You forgot your coat." I half turned, just enough to take it from him and mutter a mumbled word of thanks. "It's okay Syed," he said, calmly, too bloody calmly, as he opened the door and I ran out, ignoring his lie.

Outside it was raining. Cold and wet and dark.

I walked and walked, forcing my tired body to cover more ground. I needed to be exhausted, to be so shattered that I could sleep for a week and never wake up. I needed the cold to overwhelm me from the outside too, for the chill of bitter winds to attack my pathetic flesh and make my skin as numb and aching as my heart. I needed to wash everything away.

Legs exhausted I sat on a bench in a park, curled in a ball to hide from the world and from myself. Fitful sleep fell upon me until the hard wooden frame dug too deeply into my body and I woke, sore and cold, and oddly thankful for McDonalds and their early morning openings.

Until I tried the coffee of course, at which point I kind of wished they hadn't bothered.

Paul's card is still sitting in my hand, its sharp edges pressing into my skin when I hear a shy but sort of familiar voice coming from behind me.

"Syed? Have you been out too?"

I turn and see Chloe, standing amidst a bunch of laughing girls, more tiny dresses and improbably high heels.

I screw up the scrap of card hastily in my fist and smile, a genuine smile at the sight of, well if not a friend, then the nearest I have right now.

"Chloe, hi! No, early start for me." I wince internally at the lie, barely believable in the best of circumstances, that I would be sitting in McDonalds at half 5 in the morning, and even less convincing given the state of me, but thankfully she doesn't seem to notice. "Had a good night?"

"Yeah, it's been good. Bit wild, but you know, if you can't go wild on your 21st then when can you eh?"

Shit. I vaguely remember Angie saying something, other people calling out stuff on Friday as I had left, in a confusion of shameful thoughts and deaf to the normal world around me. Guilt traipsed through my body and I smile in a way that I hope implies that I hadn't forgotten.

"Of course."

But I see her face redden as she misinterprets my smile and quickly I find myself receiving an unexpected apology, her words falling out in a slightly drunken embarrassed muddle.

"Not that you have to go out and stuff, I mean, it's not like I get drunk all the time, and there's nothing wrong with not wanting to, I mean, I think it's really good…"

"Happy Birthday Chloe," I interrupt her with a laugh, and she starts to relax and smile again. Then pauses and bites her lip nervously.

"Erm Syed, don't suppose you fancy going out at all next week or anything? I mean, there's a film out I'd quite like to see and I was wondering if you wanted to go to the cinema, with me, to see it?"

I pause and look at her. She's pretty, sweet, nice. A nice smile, a nervous, slightly anxious smile. A nice girl who lives at home with her family and has nice hair and a nice smile. The screwed piece of card digs harder into my fist, my body aches from bruises and teeth-marks, and suddenly even all the coffee and fried food smells are drowned out by the scent of aftershave and sweat.

I smile and undo my fist, letting the card drop quickly onto the floor, to be trodden on and thrown away and forgotten.

"Sounds great, how about next Saturday?"


	5. Chapter 3

**AN: Thanks for the reviews and comments for the last chapters, I'm glad that some people are still reading despite my long absence! Hope this chapter isn't too disappointing, and check out the shameless plug for my favourite café in Leeds. Nom.**

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><p><strong>Chapter Three<strong>

**Flat 4, 23 Hyde Park Road, Leeds. Monday 1st January 2007. 11:47am.**

I had always assumed that the whole new year hangover thing wouldn't be applicable if you spent the whole of New Year's Eve stone cold sober, but apparently a litre or two of coke and a packet (or three) of Pringles on an otherwise empty stomach has a similar effect.

At least that is what I decided that the stomach ache and pounding head could be attributed to. Something logical that would clear up soon, probably with the benefit of another cup of tea and some food. I glance over my shoulder into the 'conveniently placed bijou kitchenette' as work would insist on calling it, and sigh at the lack of any obvious food. I didn't really plan this very well. Any of it. And now Chloe is coming over here, in 13 minutes, and if that wasn't weird enough, her coming over _here_ after what happened yesterday, (and my eyes find their own way to look shamefaced at the tiny bed before I can make them look away), I don't have any food to offer her and my stomach aches and my head is spinning.

Breathe.

I put my head between my legs and try to relax, until I feel a vibration in my pocket. I pull out my phone quickly and eagerly, with excitement buzzing through my veins and my nerves jangling, pushing the buttons too quickly to show _new message_ and…oh. Chloe. _5 mins away. _ She always does that, text to let me know she is nearby. So polite and nice and all that stuff that just makes everything worse. But it is lacking the usual kiss at the end of it, and I think I ought to feel sad, but instead I just feel kind of relieved. And then really really guilty.

It's been a bit over two months since…since _McDonald_s_. _Two months of nice dates at cinemas and cafés and even bowling once, which was weird and fun too in a sort of pastiche of all those American teen movies that Shabnam used to watch and that I pretended to mock. And maybe that was to blame for it, for the way that sometimes it just felt like everything was some kind of show, like I was shouting _look at me dating, on normal dates with my lovely girlfriend_. Like someone was always watching and I just couldn't seem to shake this feeling of disconnection. And maybe that was why I always had to keep my eyes open to kiss her, as if I needed to remind myself that it was me and it was her and that I had chosen to do this. Not that it happened that much. Not that I put it off or anything, it's just that it's annoying if you miss a film that you've spent the best part of a tenner paying for, and it's a bit weird to kiss someone over the table in a café, and so it was mostly just goodnight kisses outside her house after I walked her home. Like a good boyfriend would. And that was about as far as we went. She was apologetic at first, embarrased and ridiculously apologetic about living at home with her apparently _over-protective, insanely over-the-top parents_, until I said it was fine. We didn't go to mine, obviously. I was a good Muslim boy (_nearly always_, that irritating voice would say and I would hush it down with concentrated effort), and a tiny room filled almost entirely with a bed was only asking for one thing, and that one thing was something that I couldn't give, shouldn't give, and that was fine too.

We didn't even have to talk about it.

It was one of the few things that we didn't talk about. Normally we talked a lot and that really was good, she was easy to talk to and friendly, and made me laugh, for the first time in so long. Long rambling gesture-filled litanies of loving complaints about her parents that reminded me so much of Shabs. I often found myself telling her things in return, like about the time Shabnam wanted to go to some girl's house for a sleepover and how Mum insisted on going round there first, to 'talk politely' to the girl's mother about rules and boundaries, and then actually went and inspected the bedrooms and grilled the family on their attitude to, well everything really, from pre-marital sex to sweets after brushing their teeth and how often they hoovered. And then how Shabs came running into my room as she always did, and started ranting hysterically as she always did about how psychotic our family was and how as soon as she was old enough she was going to leave and go far far away so that she could live her life without Mum always trying to run it for her and ruin her entire chance at having any friends, ever.

Possibly the best thing about Chloe was that if my voice ever did trail off as the thoughts clogged up into a single powerful pull of ache and hurt, she would just smile and say something else and never ask me about any of it.

So it was fine really, and it was nice to have someone to talk to, and I found myself starting to wake up, the fog of the last few months beginning to lift.

Mosque was better. I spoke to more people, I prayed easier, feeling the weight of shame ease slightly from my tired shoulders, leaving only the other sins, the ones I could name and admit to and dream of redemption from.

It wasn't just at mosque either. Work was so much better. The random lists of numbers that I moved from page to page begin to mean something, start to represent more, flourish with potential. They took life, turned into creations in front of my eyes. They became palaces, gleaming in the sun, made of silver and gold, beacons of the future. They transformed wasteland into a shimmering oasis. They turned into buildings and dreams and open doors and looks of hope and loving smiles. I looked at the numbers and stared at redemption.

It made sense then, that when a permanent position in the investment team came up, I applied, the transformation of numbers still the backdrop to my dreams. And when I got it, it was Chloe who was first to congratulate me with a sincerity that hit somewhere low in my stomach. A sentiment of pride that if I screwed up my eyes and dug my nails into my palm I could almost imagine being repeated by different voices, the more familiar cadence to their tones bringing a genuine smile to my face.

And maybe it was hearing the imagined echoes of faraway voices, or feeling the ghost of absent hands ruffling my hair or patting my back, that meant that when Chloe asked if I wanted to come to her house on New Year's Eve after work (_it's a family thing, a tradition, us all having a couple of drinks and nibbles together at the end of the year_)_, _I found myself suddenly lost for words. There was an outsized lump in my throat threatening to render me speechless for good, razor blade sharpness scratching and scraping as I tried to swallow, the remembered taste of countless family gatherings (_and why uncounted_, asked the endless tormenter of my mind, _why didn't you count them, why didn't you realise that one day you would be without and would want to list them in your mind, why were you so stupid, so thoughtless, such a failure of a son_). The sugar sweet sickly tang of gulab jamon turning without warning to the sharp salt of loss and shame. But maybe the face of unspeakable loss just passes for natural wariness or stereotypical awkward male reluctance as she hastily backtracked, her words falling over themselves as her pale fringe fell over her eyes.

"Of course you don't want to, I know, it's totally lame, no-one wants to spend New Year's Eve with their own family let alone someone else's, look don't worr—"

"I'd love to come. Thanks for inviting me," I interrupted, watching with pleasure as she flushed with relief. It felt good, that I could make someone happy, instead of angry or, or…and I tried not to think of cold unfeeling despair, of the knowledge that your failure was expected and how that just made everything that bit worse.

"Really? Cool. And don't worry, we'll go to Sarah's party afterwards for New Year itself, that is supposed to be amazing..." And I let her stream of excited words drift over my head, as I swallowed and let myself wallow in the taste of sugar and richness and spice again.

It was only as we were walking from the bus-stop to her house, sheltering together under a too small umbrella and listening to her apologising in advance, again_, _for her parents, and I found myself again wanting to introduce her to Shabnam before catching myself and reminding myself again, like prodding a bruise that just won't heal, why this was impossible, only then did I suddenly realise what this seemed like. Not just introducing me to her parents, but doing so at something that qualifies as a family tradition, that generally means one thing. Oh. And suddenly, I felt the bottom of my stomach drop out with the thud of guilt and shock at my stupidity. This was new, further and different than I ever got before from any of the part-time casual girlfriends that I had found myself with at school and I didn't even know how we had got here. Maybe this was it, I was doomed to keep wandering into situations that I didn't understand and from which I couldn't escape. If I could just take _control _of it all then maybe it would be okay, I have to control myself, control my thoughts and my actions, stop this impulsive behaviour, and then just like that this train of thoughts came hammering along the tracks and arrived back to McDonalds and a piece of card in my hand and…

"So, here we are," Chloe's preternaturally bright and cheerful voice chimed out and I promised myself that it was relief that filled my body, simple relief at not having to think of…of _anything _except how to smile politely at her parents. To nod and smile and be the kind of boyfriend, the kind of _man_ that they would want their daughter to be with, that I want to be. That I am.

And it went well, her parents were nice, her little sister endearing, and I tried to simply enjoy the hum of familiarity that came from hearing the obviously well-rehearsed lines of bickering and the groans as private in-jokes were left hanging unfinished, leaving me touched and bewildered in equal measure. One such time, Chloe's mum lent across and started to explain something, in a way which only served to confuse me further, but I smiled gratefully at the thought. I was struck suddenly by memories of Nath's mum, dropping him off at Fresher's week and picking him up from halls at the end of first year, hugging me with an easy friendliness, like she had heard about me already, and that thought had sent an unexplainable burst of happiness to warm through my body. She grinned, the same way that Nath grinned, their eyes both crinkling at the edges, and said that we should make the most of our freedom, and talked of how proud she'd be to see us both graduate, and I found myself wondering whether she had looked for me at all, if she had looked at the programme in her hands and seen _Syed Masood_, _in absentia_, and wondered where I was. And I found myself wondering for the hundredth time if Nath had looked, if he had wondered what it meant, what any of the weird shit over the last months of our final year had meant, if he had noticed anything weird at all, if he had mis—

I suddenly felt the weight of expectant eyes boring into me, and realised that they were waiting for an answer to a question I hadn't heard.

"Sorry?" I asked, as politely as possible, finding solace in my stranger-friendly professional smile, and that seemed to be enough as Chloe's mum smiled back and repeated her question.

"I was just asking, why Leeds? I mean, obviously it's the centre of the universe,"

"God's own country," Chloe's father interjected, to a chorus of grins and rolled eyes.

"But why did you decide to come up here?"

"There are great opportunities here," I replied, with a kind of honesty, trying to dampen the voice in my head, Nath's voice, slightly drunken and ranting as I had tried unsuccessfully to quieten him down, trying to stop the laugh from falling from my mouth with every slurred expletive, (_bloody arrogant Southern tossers, oh not you Syed sorry mate, the others, those wankers, those lot who think the world starts and ends inside the M25. Fuck the lot of 'em. I can't wait to get back home, tell you what Syed, you should come up too, you'd bloody love it, you'd fit right in, fucking garden of paradise compared to this shithole anyway_), "you know, for business investments and new property developments, that sort of thing. Lots of untapped potential…" It wasn't hard to catch the look of sceptical wariness on the faces in front of me and I bit my lip as I looked down_._ "Sorry, work talk. I think it's kind of contagious." Their faces started to soften again.

"And your parents don't mind you moving so far away?"

I lowered my eyes away from the concerned filled pair opposite and murmured a polite response.

"They thought it was for the best too." The truth hurt more than the lie. "Erm, can I use your bathroom?" I quickly added and made my grateful escape.

I fled up the stairs, fled away from the sounds of Chloe's gently chiding, half teasing tone, "Honestly Dad, not all parents insist on keeping their kids trapped within a 5 mile radius of them. I've even heard that _some _fathers actually trust their sons to move to other towns."

But her voice was soon replaced by unwelcome discordant echoes throbbing through my brain. _You have shamed this family, you have to leave, you can't be a part of this anymore. I'm not telling your mother, it would kill her. _She's_ done nothing wrong. She doesn't deserve to know what kind of a man her precious son has turned out to be. What a failure of a son you are. Go now, I don't care where you go, just go now. Never contact your mother. I can't even bear to look at you. _(And he didn't even know, didn't know the worst, didn't know how low I could sink, how low I had gone, or maybe he did, somewhere deep down, maybe he could see it on my face. Maybe he always knew, the way I looked for too long or not long enough, the way I stood or spoke or thought. But no, he didn't know, he couldn't know, because there was nothing to know. Is nothing to know. But that same nothing was the reason I couldn't find a voice to object or argue. Because he was right of course. He was right and I was so so wrong. )

A door slammed in my face.

I entered the bathroom. I shut the door firmly behind me.

I shook my head and tried to focus ahead but instead of cream walls, cream carpet, cream sink, shining taps, I saw cold emotionless eyes staring straight through me, body blocking my path, solitary bag lying haphazard at my feet where it had landed (I couldn't even be trusted to pack my own bag, he couldn't even bring himself to pass it to me) and a shut door. Me standing on the doorstep of my own home, where my own _family_ lived, waiting and waiting until all I could see for days afterwards was the wood and the bell and the slightly wonky numbers and the patch of paint peeling at the side where Tam had once knocked it with his bike and cried about what mum would say and so I had lied for him and said it was me.

In a bathroom nearly 200 miles away from the peeling paint, I dug the heel of my palm into my eyes and pushed images away along with the hot rush of salty damp betraying traces.

I sat on the floor, losing track of time, listening to the steady drum of rain falling outside, counting the drops as they hit the window pane, drifting into the comforting fog of nothing.

The slam of a door and I was pulled out of my numbness.

The slam of a door and it took 30 seconds and the sound of happy voices and light footfalls on the stairs outside before I realised that it was the door downstairs rather than the one in my mind.

I quickly threw cold water over my face, shaking the ever present ache from my eyes and fixing a smile onto my tired face. I won't let Chloe down. I won't. I left the bathroom with serious intent and promptly walked straight into a guy. Shit. A tall normal-looking but dripping wet guy with eyes like Chloe's but a mouth that grinned with unnecessary ease as he smiled at me and stuck out a (warm, wet, lean) hand. I shook it politely but the wet skin on mine dragged dangerous thoughts from the hidden recesses of my mind. _Shit_. The guy in front of me vanished as all I could see was another damp body, the drips from another wet hand falling onto my skin as he grasped me and my mouth was suddenly too dry to speak. _Oh shitshitshit_.

"Hey I'm Adam, Chloe's brother. And I guess you're Syed right? Fuck it's pouring outside, well obviously, sorry, I'm dripping all over you."

I tried to find some kind of witty banter in reply, but all I could do was nod dumbly, my hand still holding his in an awkward shake until I came to and snapped it back to my side with an unnecessary attempt at force. I made my reluctant mouth form the shape of a response that could maybe pass for normal politeness.

"Erm yeah, that's me. And I'd better…" I pointed down the stairs in lieu of a complete and logical sentence and he nodded, a faint flash of something crossing over his eyes. Something that I didn't understand and didn't want to see, so I just turned away sharply and retreated to rejoin Chloe, her sister and their parents, fixed grin carved back onto my cheeks with determined effort. Adam joined shortly afterwards, now thankfully dry, and I felt my smile grow ever tighter, my laughs louder, my body edging nearer to Chloe's, but every time I accidentally looked in his vague direction I saw those eyes watching me with, I don't know, confusion, knowledge, doubt, disgust? I didn't know and I couldn't think about it either. I couldn't.

Eventually, finally, thankfully, when my cheeks were aching from the rictus smile that was now near permanently tattooed onto my face, Chloe made some excuse and we were able to leave. I said a sort of normal goodbye to her parents and her sister, and just about managed to eek out a passable farewell to Adam, all the while ensuring that I looked somewhere just beyond his head and ignored the burning sensation of his too-knowing eyes boring into my skull.

We walked along, shivering in the damp chill of the evening, the winter winds buffeting us as we dodged our way through the onslaught of excited drunken revellers heading out into town. I was unreasonably grateful for the distractions and the noise that prevented us from being able to talk to each other. Grateful, and guilty, and ashamed. Which was probably why when Chloe turned to me and suggested that we could stop off at my place first on our way to the party, I found myself putting my arm tightly around her and saying _why not?_

It took less than 15 minutes for me to realise exactly why not.

She'd given the place a cursory once over. Mind you it was pretty hard for anyone to give it anything other than a cursory look, given the lack of cat-swinging possibilities inside the tiny space, and I had felt compelled to make stupid vague (even if mostly true) remarks about how I was saving my money and how it was only really a temporary place. Her sympathetic look and polite reassurances that it was _actually kind of cosy_ somehow seemed just to make me feel more pissed off. I found myself bizarrely wishing that she could at least be stuck up and arsey about it, look down her nose or something. Anything other than this undeserved politeness. But I bit back the unfair bubbles of irritation and offered her a seat on the bed (and why is it that I don't have a chair like a normal person, like everyone else does? Who invites a guest to sit on their bloody bed? No-one. I'm a disgrace).

So maybe it shouldn't have come as such a shock when I found myself being pushed back onto the bed with surprisingly strong force behind those skinny arms, her lips covering mine with an eagerness that I had no hope of keeping up with. All I could feel was the clogging texture of her lipstick as it rubbed and smeared over my skin, and all I could smell was the heady scent of her perfume, flooding my senses with its overpowering, headache-inducing sickly aroma. I tried to concentrate on the soft texture of her hair between my fingers, the soft blonde strands gently falling onto my skin as she moved her head. And then her hand reaching down, the fingers awkwardly popping the top button on my jeans and _oh shit_. I froze, stock still with fear and confusion, unable to move until I felt the zipper edge its way downwards. I hastily broke away, trying to push her away gently but firmly, scared of hurting her but more scared of not moving, of what she might want, of what I can't…I don't…I'm not even half—…_Shit_.

She sat up, a red tinge added to her cheeks, visible under the makeup she had so carefully applied this afternoon and I felt my stomach clench with the familiar bile of self-loathing. We sat in silence, a distinct and impassable gap between our bodies, a frozen chasm between our thoughts.

"Do you want a cup of tea or anything?" I forced out the ridiculous question despite my tongue feeling like it had grown too big for my mouth.

"I'll make some," she replied, rising from the single sagging mattress and taking the single step across to the counter.

"But you're the guest, you won't know where stuff is," I objected weakly, unable somehow to shake the feeling that this was all some kind of test, and a test that I was failing on quite an epic scale.

Chloe merely raised an eyebrow in my direction as she gestured wordlessly to the kettle that nearly took up half the available table space, the open box of teabags on the shelf above and the 2 slightly chipped mugs hanging dangerously off the hooks on the wall.

"Or you could just help yourself," I added ruefully and finally I saw her lips quirk slightly into the promise of a smile.

She brought the tea across and I held the mug in my hands gratefully, focusing all my attention on gently swirling the liquid around, and trying to work out whether or not the chip had increased in size since I last used it, when Chloe began to speak.

"It's okay, I get it, I do."

My knuckles whitened as my grip on the handle moved from tight to vicelike. Bile rose higher, hitting the back of my throat and for a second I feared I might have to drop the tea and run out. But at the same time I couldn't help but feel the edges of a cool breeze hitting my over heated brain; there was a slight desperate sense of relief amongst the gut-wrenching fear, the hint of a chance of freedom, the creak of a door edging open.

"You need a good Muslim girl right?"

The door slammed shut.

"I mean you couldn't take me home to meet your parents could you?" My head started to nod, slowly at first then more definitely. "Not like I took you home. And you can't do…" Thankfully she trailed off then and I stared closer at the tea. "It's okay, really. I get it. I'm not right for you. Not in the long run. You know that don't you?"

"Yeah," I said, and it was the truth. "I'm really sorry," I added, which was also the truth. I fidgeted awkwardly on the bed, taking a sip of the scalding tea to avoid looking at Chloe, and to drown out the buzzing of unthinkable thoughts in my mind. The silence lengthened and pressed painfully in the gaps between us until I forced my burnt tongue into some kind of action. "I should…Maybe we…I…"

"We should talk about stuff tomorrow. Let's just go to the party now."

And if I thought that that would be incredibly awkward and really I would just rather curl up in my bed and try to forget about everything, about this whole fucking year to be honest, well I wasn't in much of a position to argue. Not right now. So I nodded and she nodded and we left without any further words and with half-drunk cups of tea sitting side by side next to the kettle.

The party was…well it was pretty much as I had expected except worse. At least at first. The house was rammed with people I didn't know, the smell of sweat and beer reminding me of student nights out that now just made my stomach ache, and every so often I caught a waft of strong musky aftershave and for the briefest of half-seconds my body would seek to turn in that direction before I could drag myself shaking back to Chloe. She was smiling and laughing but every time I caught her eyes I had to bite down the urge to apologise and fight back the desire to beg to leave. This night wasn't my night and it wasn't supposed to be my night, it was Chloe's and it was about being good to her and right to her for one night at least. I owed her that much surely. And so I smiled and smiled and made polite conversation and pretended it was work and pretended I was a great boyfriend and pretended I was enjoying myself and pretended and pretended until my body ached and maybe I even started to believe the pretence.

Except then.

"Fucking hell, Syed Masood? Where the fuck did you spring from? I told you didn't I, no-one can resist the power of Leeds. You were right to give in." And with that, with a bundle of barely connected words, a flash of teeth in a too wide grin, and a flail of gangly limbs dragging me into a hug, Nathaniel Elliot Barnham (He had introduced himself like that the first time we met, bags at his feet, boxes in his arms, his mum weighed down under bedding until I went to rescue a stray pillow._ I nearly got landed with bloody Oliver as a middle name. Wasn't till the registrar pointed it out that mum realised what the initials would be. Dozy bint_, he had added affectionately, prodding her in the side as she laughed and dropped a pile of towels onto the floor) arrived back in my life.

So obviously I had to talk to him, obviously we had to find somewhere quieter than this house teeming with people and music so that we could catch up and we found ourselves sitting shivering at the bottom of the garden, Nath keeping the cold at bay with regular swigs of some whiskey that he had found inside while I drank my coke and ate my bodyweight in crisps. I told him what I'd been up over the past year and a half (skipping the worst, omitting the parts that I didn't ever think about, glossing over the bits that I didn't know how to explain). I told him about my new job, and asked him about his recent life and heard in reply all about random tribes in Vietnamese highlands and getting wasted on beaches in Thailand and all the other tales that sounded like stereotypical gap year shit when coming from other people, but somehow sounded interesting and fresh when Nath put his spin on it. Then before I had half a chance to realise, we glanced at our watches and it was half one in the morning and we had missed the bells and the whole point of a new year party.

"Not that there is anyone here worth hitting anyway," Nath smirked with nonchalant arrogance. "Just came for the craic and to meet up with old mates, and here you are, so I guess it wasn't a _complete_ waste of a night."

"Thanks," I replied with mock annoyance but I could hardly avoid feeling the warmth that floated through me, the sense of calm that had been lacking for so long. Until my brain reminded me that I hadn't come alone, that I was supposed to be with Chloe and that I hadn't seen her since nearly 11. _Shit_. I pulled out my phone to see several missed calls and a couple of texts. _Fuck_. The last one sent at 00.30.

_Syed, I don't know where you are. I'm going home. I left my coat at yours. I'll come round tomorrow at 12 to get it. C_

So there's another thing I messed up. Except it feels a lot less bad than I thought it ought to, and something just feels a lot more right.

And just as I think that, right on cue, the buzzer goes and I let her in.

"I'm sorry," I tell her, passing her her neatly folded coat, feeling chilled from the coldness present in her normally cheerful eyes. "For last night, it's just, I hadn't seen Nath in so long and we had a lot to catch up on and I guess I lost track of time. I'm really sorry for abandoning you. And I'm sorry too. For erm, before. But you were right I think." And the words come tumbling out unaided and unstoppable. "I do need someone that I can take home, I need a Muslim girl. It's my faith and it's important to me. And it's my family too. I couldn't ever be happy being with someone that they didn't approve of. Not that they wouldn't approve of _you_ exactly it's just...well you know what I mean. And my family and my faith are the most important things to me, you know?"

And then, as I try to decipher her unreadable expression, my thoughts continue unspoken. Maybe this was the source of all my problems, that I have been looking for something in all the wrong ways, and even my mistakes were just part of this path in realising it. And it's okay to make mistakes, that is what makes us human and flawed, but what matters is how you atone for them and that is what I am going to do now.

And okay maybe I said that last part out loud because Chloe's expression softens and she opens her mouth like she is about to say something, but then just pats me on the arm instead. "Look Syed," she starts, but my phone starts buzzing on the table and I lean across to grab it, the grin tilting at the edges as I read the message.

_Never drinking again. I blame u. Meet me 4 coffee l8r? U can mock my infidel weakness._

Only Nath, I think warmly, only Nath could send a text with both 'l8r' and 'infidel'. I quickly tap out a response.

_Blame Mr Jack Daniels. Or yourself. Idiot. See you at 1 at Oranaise?_

"Sorry," I apologise again to Chloe after I send the text, realising that I had managed to ignore her again. But this time she just laughs a little oddly and tilts her head at me.

"You're a nice guy Syed, and I hope everything works out for you, yeah? Just…take care of yourself."

I think maybe I ought to kiss her on the cheek or something, or see her out, or something to show that I am a nice guy really and to show that I really am sorry for it all, because she is a nice girl, and I am sorry, more than I can explain, but she leaves before I have the chance to do anything.

When a text arrives a couple of seconds later I turn eagerly to my phone and thoughts of Chloe have all but vanished from my mind.

_Fuck yes. Full english & a pint of coffee. How did I survive w/o u man? _

And my easy, unstoppable grin nearly cracks my cheeks.


	6. Interlude B

**AN Thanks for the reviews so far, I agree poor Syed definitely needs a hug! Ah well, here's a quick pop back to him and Christian in the (near) present.  
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><p><strong>Interlude B<br>**

**15a Turpin Road, Walford. Tuesday 5****th**** April 2011. (continues directly from first interlude)  
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The shower pounds down onto my head, and I breath in slowly.

I shake my head and my ears clear, the room is silent again apart from the sound of regular sips and swallows.

"So, how are the plans for the salon going?"

I laugh at the sudden change of topic, and tone.

"Is that you trying to change the subject?"

"Yep, subtle wasn't it." I hear the laughter in his voice and my smile grows. Maybe you don't always have to understand. Sometimes it's enough just to know that you don't. "Go with it."

"It's going okay, we've got loads of plans, some special offers on different treatments, you know so that once someone is sitting there waiting for their hair to set or whatever then we can suggest they have a quick cheapie foot massage to pass the time. But it'll just be a taster, and before you know it, their hair will be ready…"

"And then of course by then they realise how amazing your hands are and be desperately signing up for more."

"Well exactly."

"You're a bloody tease Syed Masood, you'll be rolling it in."

"Then maybe we could take another trip to Brighton, and even stay in a slightly more salubrious hotel." I wince and tell myself it was the heat of the water. Definitely nothing else. I turn up the cold.

"What? You didn't like the dodgy phone calls and regular night-time activities of our fellow guests?"

I shuddered. Maybe the shower was too cold now. I turn my head around and force a light-hearted tone back into my voice, letting the water wash the distant thoughts, thankfully near forgotten, from out of my mind. "I liked it when you tried to drown them out."

"I know you did." And the smugness of that tone should really be outlawed. "You did your fair share of drowning them out yourself. I bet some of the girls started charging extra based on that. I know I'd pay plenty."

"Shut up."

His dirty laugh seems to bounce round all the walls, echoing happily in the small room, and I duck my head back under the flow of the water, trying to lessen my blush. The past is gone, but Christian is here with me. I made him happy, this is something I can do. I can make him happy and that feels like the greatest gift of all.

"So anyway," I called out trying to move onto safer areas, "we were trying to think of a good name for the new salon. Tanya keeps trying to find puns based on 'Tan' and 'tanning' but to be honest they're all a bit shit. Don't tell her I said that though," I added quickly, "I told her they were great."

"And what did Business Mogul Syed Masood come up with?"

"Well I was thinking, _Buff_ sounded pretty good. It kind of implies a good body, and buffing your nails and you know, being bare and stuff."

I wait for the reply but I can hear are kind of vague snuffles coming from Christian's direction, so I lean over and peer curiously through the water at him. His fist is stuffed in his mouth and his shoulders are shaking with barely suppressed giggles.

"What?" I demand.

"Nothing Sy," he eventually struggles past the laughter to say. "It's a great name. Doesn't at all sound like a dodgy sauna on the Old Kent Road or anything."

"Fuck off." I chuck the shower gel at him and he ducks, just about avoiding it hitting his shoulder. "As if you know anything about good business names."

"I don't know what you're on about, _Abs Acadabra_ is a bloody genius name."

"It's appalling, Christian. Truly appalling."

"Look at all the clients I've had, loads of them said they came because they liked the poster so it must be doing something right." Despite the steam and the wall of tiles ahead of me, Christian's sulk is more obvious than ever.

"Christian, they're really not referring to the name." I grin, thinking of Christian's picture on the poster, all arms on display and fierce face, and then grin more as I can hear him stretching out with pride, like some giant cat having caught its prey.

"Well, same with you then. You can call the salon any name you like, once the clients see who they get as their gorgeous masseur then they'll be lining up down the street. And forget Brighton, you'll be off on luxury cruises and jet-setting all over the place. The Masood Massage empire, first step Walford, next step New York eh."

I turn off the shower and stick my hand as Christian passes me a towel.

"Dunno about New York, and it's not about the money _per se_. You know that. I just want…I want to achieve something, you know, to create something, to be able to look in the mirror and think, yeah, that's mine. I want to be proud of something."

Strong hands push sodden hair back off my face and press lips onto the edge of my hairline with a soft sigh. "Can't you just be proud of you?"

"You know what I mean. It's why you started your business remember? I mean you could be working in someone else's gym, working _for _someone else, but you wanted to go it alone."

"Yeah. I do know." Christian's voice is sweet and low against my ear, his hands warm on my skin and I shiver briefly. He laughs and pushes me away as I move the towel to rough dry my hair. "Come on you, get dry, I'll pop the kettle on again for you. So anyway," he adds as he starts to walk away, "onto other matters, how long do you give them?"

"What?" I remove the towel from over my head, hoping that the sodden cotton was an excuse for the complete lack of comprehension on my part.

"Tam and Afia. How long do you give them? A year? Two at the most?"

"We are not doing this. _You _are not doing this. They're about to have their, admittedly rather late and now secretly pointless, engagement party, no-one is about to discuss whether they might split up! Let alone decide a date!"

"Okay, so you reckon that their relationship is completely solid and not rushed into at all then? They're what? 19? 20? And have known each about 4 months? Yep, definitely spells long term future to me."

"Not everyone has to sleep with half of London to find someone they want to settle down with." I wince as I hear the words come out sharper than I had meant and as I walk out of the bathroom I am greeted by the unwelcome sight of Christian's tall frame halting and tensing.

I hate that, hate knowing that it is my fault. I hate getting everything wrong and hurting him when all I ever want is to see that smile burst across his face. I look at the tense set of his shoulders and imagine the frown that is creasing between his eyebrows right now and I know that I would do _anything_ never to see that again.

I hate him thinking I am judging him or criticising him or whatever. Christian is happy with his past, always has been. He is so comfortable in his own skin and with his choices and decisions of the past and that is something I loved about him from the very start. But looking at the way he sits nervous under my gaze I realise that maybe he doesn't know that. He doesn't realise that it isn't _his_ past that is an issue. It's just that to tell him that now would mean a conversation that I can't deal with right now. Not today when I need to think about Tam and my parents and our future.

"Sy I didn't mean anything—"

"I'm sorry, Christian—"

We spoke at the same time and Christian huffed a short laugh and collapsed on the sofa.

"Look Sy, I didn't mean to be mocking them or anything, it's just really…who really knows who they are at 19, or what they might want later on in life?"

"Maybe some people do," I answer quietly, grabbing my dressing gown and wrapping it around me as if it could offer some protection from my mind.

"Maybe. But not most, eh? Not me for sure, can you imagine if we'd met when I was 19?"

"You are remembering that I would have been 7 right? Cos that's just…"

"I _never_ need to remember things like that. But my point still stands, 19, 20, 21 whatever, it's a time when you should be free to make hideous mistakes. You must know that too eh?" His voice is quieter now, soft as he turns to look straight at me with unasked questions written loud and clear in his eyes. And with more bloody images of Danny's hand's and Paul's mouth and I can't, I just can't, not right now, so I raise the towel back to my head and nearly block out his next question, spoken out loud this time. "It's first love, and at the time you think it means everything, but it's just a thing, a phase, you learn from it and you grow up and grow out of it. I mean, could you have settled down with the person you were in love with at 19?"

"I wasn't in love with anyone at 19," I replied quickly, instantly and without thought. And then I bite my lip as I hear the falseness of my words in the air. "Well except…" I mumble into the secret soft cotton of the towel, and Christian, a world away, doesn't hear.

"Well yeah, but come on Sy, you know what I mean." He pauses and I finally lower the towel from my damp hair and look at Christian, his eyes concerned. I look at _my_ Christian, this man who is mine despite everything that happened when I was 19 or 20 or 23 or whenever, and the corners of my mouth turn up into the smile that he brings. His own wariness falters under the refreshing burst of light that emerges from his own cheek splitting grin. "Alright, alright, I get it, I'm being horrible and cynical and now is not the time, right?"

I smile slightly at the acknowledgement and concession that for Christian constitutes a full-fledged apology.

"Definitely not." It isn't. It really isn't.

"And if anyone can make a success out of the whole 'it was a teenage wedding and the old folks wished 'em well' thing, I'm sure Tam can."

I laughed. "Precisely. Anyway, Tam isn't a real teenager. He was _born_ 35, that's why Afia's good for him. Stops him from entering into a midlife crisis too soon."

"Just like you and me then," Christian replies, his smile steadfast and sure, and my heart aches with the kind of feelings I thought I would never deserve to know.


	7. Chapter 4

**Looooong chapter ahead, sorry! Warnings for more Syed pain, even more excessive use of paratheses and some unintended references to_ Press Gang_ quotes. I honestly don't know how they got there. **

****Thanks to those who have r&r'ed so far, I really appreciate it. ****

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Four<strong>

**Ticket Office, Leeds Train Station. Saturday 19th April 2008. 10.33am**

I tap my feet impatiently as I stand in the queue, staring at the people in front of me, trying to guess who is just after a simple purchase of tickets and who is planning on quizzing the apparently half deaf guy behind the counter about the mysteries of life. So far I hadn't guessed very well. The guy who looked coolly competent on his phone when standing in the queue had dissolved into a confused mess of dates and times and required every option repeated slowly to him five times until the rest of us could probably chant it along with him. And does it really take 15 minutes to get a travelcard?

I tapped my foot again, shooting daggers at the self-service machines to my left, with their flashing 'out of order' signs, and tried to calm down. It's not like I had any plans today. It's just a Saturday. A boring uneventful Saturday. And I tried hard, _really_ hard not to remember drawled drunken plans of lunches and picnics and Bollywood movie marathons. Because it didn't happen. Nothing happened last night, at least, nothing important or worth remembering, and the sooner I get that sorted the better. I tap my feet again and the woman in front of me pointedly turns and stares coldly at me. Red heat filters up my face and I lower my head, forcing my bored feet to remain still. I guess it is a bit annoying. I just have to wait. Wait to get to the front of the queue. Wait to buy my tickets. Wait the three weeks until my notice is complete. Wait until I can contact my parents again. That's all I have to do. Wait. And then maybe I can make it all right again.

I mean, that was what these past years have all been about, making it better. Because I know I can. I got myself a good job, it's been going well, I've been making money, making good investments. I am a _valued and recognised asset to the company_, that's what they said at my appraisal. A Valued Asset. And I can't pretend that that doesn't feel good. Or that the moment when the boss, not just my line manager, but the actual CEO of the whole company came over and said that I'd done a great job with the last sale, and all through the day I just kept hearing _great job great job_ again and again and feeling a faint rush of heat burning through my body. It's funny, the job. Because it isn't just about numbers and investments. Well obviously there is that, but there is also all the dealing with people and convincing them to invest. It's not lying, which is lucky as I'm kind of rubbish at that, Na—, people, are always laughing at my attempts at plausible lies which result in nervously flickering eyes and flushed cheeks. It's just…working out what people want to hear, what they need you to say and then responding to that. Being the person that they think you are, that they want you to be, and then they feel comfortable with you and it just makes everything easier. And I'm kind of good at that. I kind of like it.

It's getting better and I know it can be better still. Sometimes, late at night when I can't sleep, I pull out the pictures in my wallet and stare at them until my eyes start to shut of their own accord and I see myself walking up to a house (_door slams_). The door opens (_just go now_) and I am standing here, wearing some smart suit (_shamed this family_), smart car parked in the street behind (_can't be a part of this anymore_). I hand over a pile of money. No need to be counted (_it would kill her_). I am a success (_failure of a son_). They open the door wider (_failure_) and their arms are wider still.

Sometimes I dream it so vividly that when I wake up I think I'm at home. I can almost hear the clatter of plates downstairs and the gurgle of the water boiling in the kettle, familiar voices chatting and laughing. Until my eyes find the damp patches on the ceiling and the slamming and screaming of the couple next door that is, and I feel like I have lost everything all over again.

Sometimes I dream that it isn't just me returning, that I move to the side and there is some girl standing shyly behind me. Someone that Mum looks at with suspicion and wariness at first but soon warms to, finding embarrassing baby photos to show to her, and Dad smiles at me in sympathy and they both make unsubtle hints about grandchildren and we laugh and she blushes.

I can't see her face.

I don't try to look.

I don't need to, it's not important, not at that moment.

Chloe was right. I do need someone that I can take home, that will be part of my family, someone that will fit. That's the most important thing. I just haven't had enough time recently, too busy with work. Occasionally I would go out with a girl. Nothing serious or proper, just a coffee or a walk with one of the sisters or daughters from someone at mosque. But then they would ask about my family or my long-term plans up here and I would change the topic and make my excuses soon after. But like I said, it was fine though, because I needed to concentrate on my work first off, I had to make that the priority, I had to make something of myself. And once I got that sorted, then I can do something about it.

It's just been so busy recently, with work, and then drinks (or orange juices) after work and networking and of course I would hang out with Nath. I always had Nath.

Had.

I only realise my foot is tapping away again when the woman in front turns back round to scowl at me.

I'm not friends with Nathaniel anymore. That's fine. It is. It's for the best. Nathaniel is part of the past and I am getting ready to move on, I need to focus on the future. And my future isn't in Leeds, and it definitely doesn't include Nathaniel.

It wasn't like we had spent all our time together recently anyway. I mean, I was often out with people from work, or at networking events chatting to dull but rich types or smarmy greasy potential investors, with a forced smile and a ready supply of casual chat (and if I were ever noticed _exactly_ where the attention of their eyes might fall, then I would look away quickly without raising attention or offence. I am a _valued asset_ I would remind myself and I tried not to think of what those eyes would mean or want.)

As for Nath, well, he was always the popular one, the one with hundreds of friends, and I assumed he was often out with them, or with a girlfriend of course. Not that I knew if he had one, or several, or whatever, he rarely mentioned anyone but this was _Nathaniel _and the idea of women not falling over themselves to date him seemed preposterous in the extreme.

But that still left a lot of evenings where we were both free and ended up hanging out, and it was kind of like uni again, except how it felt more...purposeful I guess. We had our jobs to discuss for one thing. Nath was working in marketing with a job title that sounded suitably important and thoroughly incomprehensible.

("_Yeah yeah yeah, don't even start, I know, _marketing _of all things, but I'm fucking good at it alright." _

_" What at, bullshitting?" _

_"Says the glorified estate agent. Yeah I went there." _

_"Fuck you" _

_"You're only angry cos it's true."_)

We weren't just kids playing around with wild ideas anymore. This was real money and real life and it was almost intoxicating at times. I'd tell him about potential investment opportunities and soon we'd be involved in in-depth discussions of locations and developments and 'untapped potential' and 'urban regeneration'. But what hadn't changed from uni was how he still had all this enthusiasm, so we'd end up brainstorming well into the early hours, about the opportunities and the future. I'd mention some vague tentative ideas I'd had and he'd add to them to make them into amazing plans, our bright futures becoming brighter by the minute and ever more enmeshed in each other's. Sometimes I'd leave his flat at 2 or 3 in the morning, faintly tripping over my own feet with the toxic and addictive combination of tiredness and excitement, drunk on the fizzing anticipation of future plans.

It wasn't like we only spoke about work either. For one thing, Nath seemed terminally incapable of shopping for more than a newspaper and a bottle of milk without requiring company or assistance. Or at least a willing accomplice to agree that everything he was buying was totally necessary and amazing, whether it was a new top or a new computer. Like the other week when Nath had called me at work with great urgency, insisting that I had to come into town with him to help him shop for a Mother's Day present and despite my initial halting attempts to get out of it, I ended up spending nearly three hours traipsing round what seemed like every shop in West Yorkshire searching for the perfect gift, rejecting card after card for not being right, until Nath had sighed and conceded defeat, grabbing the nearest one and insisted that it would just have to do.

(I didn't get anything then. I went back into town the next day and spent another hour searching before deciding that actually Nath's was probably the best of a shabby bunch. I bought it and put it the shelf above my bed. It took me two days to write it. Another day to address the envelope. And one more day to rip the card into tens of tiny pieces, sprinkling them into confetti into the bin. I heard later that Nath's mum had loved the card. Nath never asked me if I had got anything for my mum or not. I was never sure if he noticed more than he said or simply cared less than I liked to hope.)

But yeah, it wasn't like we saw each other every day or anything. It was just nice to have a mate to spend some time with. Which was maybe why when I got a text from on my birthday, apologising that he had_ some work bollox on 2nite_ so couldn't go out and celebrate or anything, I felt a faint burst of pleasure hum through my body.

It was stupid really. I wasn't seven, demanding a football shaped cake and all the kids in my class to come round for tea. I was an adult and I didn't need to celebrate the passing of another year. So I hadn't made any plans or anything like that. It just that…well that text, along with the _HAPPY BIRTHDAY DUDE _greeting that had flashed onto my phone that morning, gave me something to concentrate on, even as I studiously ignored my silent phone that evening and deliberately didn't look at the empty shelf. It was just nice to have someone remember. So when Nathaniel texted to say I should come round to his on Friday for belated birthday takeaway curry I accepted with perhaps over-eager glee.

It had been a good night. Nothing much to write home about I guess, not for most people, but it was just fun and chilled and nice. Nice to have someone there who I could talk easily to, that I could relax with, and so we laughed and ate and hung out and he had a couple of beers and it was probably completely lame but it was one of the best birthdays I had ever had.

But then.

So I had gone to the bathroom sometime late on and when I returned it was different somehow.

Maybe it was the light. The sudden change from the bright fluorescence of the bathroom to the cool dimness of the living room, the city lights shining and flickering through the window, the blue glow of the TV screen hitting the shadows and curves of his face.

Or maybe it was his legs, their length draped all over the sofa, spread apart as if demanding attention, trousers dragged up to display inches of pale flesh, rough tufts of hair spread over the slight mounds of his ankles.

Or maybe it was his neck, tilted back against the cushions, his long fingers gripping a bottle, lips pursed as he tossed it back, the long lean lines of muscle stretching up from the sharp curve of his collarbone, the Adam's apple in his throat gulping as he swallowed.

Or maybe it was his mouth, wet from beer, tongue poking out to lick salt from crisp eating fingers, then breaking into a cheek splitting…

Yeah, or maybe it was that smile. Eyes wide and lit up, lips breaking the perfect skin of his face into a cozy grin. Flashing dimples, showing teeth, the works. Like he is _that _pleased to see me, like anyone could be that pleased.

And suddently everything in my body started to shake and shiver, like a switch being hit on, like a tremor of electricity brushing through a body soaked in sweat.

Shit.

But I hadn't realised. I hadn't known (_I didn't want to know, I didn't want to see_). He had been my best friend for years. I had wanted to spend time with him (_spend all my time. Spend all _his _time_). I wanted to talk to him, laugh with him (_touch him, kiss him_).

My body was rocked with revelations, thoughts that gagged my mind, that choked the words in my throat, but I walked on unsteady legs to the sofa, taking a seat with no little relief.

"You alright?" asked Nath and all I could see where the dark flecks sprinkled in the centre of his blue eyes, the touch of perspiration nestling at the base of his tendrils of hair, the curve of his red (so red, were they always this red?) lips. I looked and looked and looked at Nathaniel's face in the glow of the night and the TV and there was nothing else left in the world. I leant forward quickly, my lips rushing onto his and for the briefest, most perfect of moments I tasted the bitter tang of his beer and felt the rub of his wet lips and my body screamed with the hum of desire.

Firm hands on my shoulder pushed me forcefully back, the pressure of his fingers digging tight into my skin.

His eyes were wide, lashes batting slowly against his skin as he blinked with confusion, dismay, shock, disgust. I saw his questions and I opened my mouth to answer them before he could speak. But my voice shook and the words were stuck, scratching the inside of my throat as they attempted to force their way out.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean…I'm not…it wasn't…it was a mistake…it's not like…I'm _not_…"An incoherent babbling mess of fake sounding words that even then sounded too oddly familiar and I wondered how it was that I always managed to find new and worse ways to fuck up everything in my stupid fucking life. The shadow of darkness and sin that I tried to ignore now threatening to obscure all the sparks of light and beauty and goodness in the world.

I gulped desperately for breath, blinking rapidly to ward off the pressure of imminent tears welling up below. Even through half shut eyes I could see his look, still of shock and… I thought weakly of persuading investors that I knew what I was doing with their money and I stuck out an arm now, wildly, desperately, needing to convince him, to grip him, to make the last few minutes disappear and return us back to _us_, to mates, to best friends and old uni mates, to carefree talk and casual banter. But he leapt away before my hand could even reach his arm. Leapt away instinctively as if he feared what that hand might do, what my touch could instigate and mean, and was that a fucking _shudder_? _Repulsion, he is repulsed by me_, I realised, and I thought I might be sick. Because of course he is repulsed. Because he is normal and not some sick fuckup like me. I couldn't look any more at his eyes, at the way he held his body so tightly together now, the antithesis of his sprawled posture just minutes before. I got up on shaky legs, grabbed my jacket from the side and ran for it, barely catching Nath's weak and insincere attempt at a goodbye or whatever.

"Syed you don't have to run…we should erm talk? Or something?"

I was out of the door and halfway down the street before I remembered how to breathe.

I concentrated on walking fast, block after block, heart still thumping out of kilter, racing at unnatural speeds, hurting my chest. And every streetlight, every lamppost, every poster on a billboard seemed to have eyes, eyes that burnt into my body, eyes of disgust, eyes that judged me and found wanting.

Always wanting. And wanting what was wrong.

I needed to see something else, to find eyes that didn't startle in sneer or shock, and I thought of other eyes, eyes that had widened and darkened and hadn't moved away. I thought of the bar from before then thought again (_too quiet, I would still be able to hear my mind_). I turned the corner and then another and walked and walked until I walked past a bored looking doorman, walked past a blasé looking cloakroom attendant, walked into the darkness and the light, walked into the noise and the heat and searched for oblivion.

I stood by the corner of the bar, waiting for my eyes and ears to grow accustomed to it all. The heavy beat thrumped through my body, pounding through my mind, making the hairs on my arm flutter and shake.

_I don't belong here_, I thought, but I didn't leave. I'd been in other places where I had felt similar. Quieter rooms, less filled with sweat and alcohol. Where people wore more clothes and looser ones and never stood grinding their hips into others. But they had still been rooms where I had felt unknown and ill at ease and I had always found a way to adapt, an appropriate smile, a suitable posture. I had always known how to play the part.

I moved nearer and leant into the bar, feeling the solid pressure of the wood into my stomach, grounding me there. I ordered a coke and allowed my eyes the quickest of glances at the mass of people who didn't care who I was.

I saw men glance back at me, look me up and down, their eyes considering, wanting, tempting. I felt their eyes on my t-shirt and the material felt oddly strange under their scrutiny, gripping to me in ways that I didn't realise it could, never thought that it should. _Had I dressed to pull_, my panicked mind asked, _dressed for attention without even realising? _(I had. I had fucking _demanded _his attention. I had wanted his eyes and then I had them. It was my fault. I deserved his scorn. I deserved the shame. I should go home and change and wash and pray). I looked away and stared at the bar, my fingers shaking as I reached for the glass. My body shivered under their gaze and I did not leave. I swilled the drink round the glass, I felt their eyes on me and I did not leave. I hated it, I hated every inch of my clothing, I hated every inch of my skin. I wanted them to keep looking, I needed them to keep looking. I did not leave. I needed more, as if the multitude of appeasing stranger's eyes were needed to supplant the burning image of a singular familiar disgusted pair. I did not leave.

I took another gulp and swallowed down my thoughts, forcing my heart to thump along with the bass. A nudge at my side and I turned to see a guy to my right. A non-descript guy in non-descript clothes looking at me with impossible-to-miss meanings in his eyes. My mouth is dry. I can't… He isn't... It's too much, it's all wrong, I pushed away my glass and turned away from the bar, mumbling a kind of apology in his vague direction and seeking some escape amongst the crowd.

The crowd of men.

I looked and looked away and then looked again, my greedy sinful unfocused eyes scanning this room of men who wanted so openly and displayed it without restraint, without control, without care. I watched and watched with my own want rising and my unease soaring. This was a world that I could never belong to, that could never understand me. But then the other world, the world in which I ought to be completely at home, completely comfortable, the place that I was shown as my birth right, my place, _that_ world was still hanging far away from me, taunting me with its presence in my mind and its absence from my reality.

Sensations and thoughts started pressing together in my mind with increased fervour, competing desires grinding against each other, discordant thoughts pressed up tight against me, squeezing my chest, constricting my thoughts. I tried to seek some temporary relief and headed for the toilets, a cool space to calm the heated tempest within. But there too were bodies and sounds and sights that caked to my body and whispered to my mind, a siren call filled with destructive power, promising a shot at nirvana. I left, my veins throbbing, my head pounding. I returned to the bar, pushing past faceless bodies until I could hide again, melting my body into the grains of wood. My eyes flicked from drink to other eyes, waiting for someone to ask the question that I hadn't dared to think of an answer to.

Along the bar from me, a pair of brown eyes flashed up at mine. They stared too long, with an intent that forced my own eyes to drop quickly down. But when I looked back up he was back talking to some other guy and I reminded myself that I wasn't disappointed. Another sip of juice. Another chance to leave ignored.

"Can I get you a drink?" Hand on my shoulder, cool breath against my face. Brown eyes staring smiling into mine.

That disappointment that I hadn't felt burnt into a fizz of nervous excitement. Nerves jangling, my hands shaking, my eyes flicking up and down and along. The other man standing alone.

I smiled.

"Orange juice please," and I winced inside both at the audible tremor in my voice and at its childish politeness that seemed so out of place here (but yet even here it is her voice that is still loudest inside my head, _please _and _thank you Syed, do you want people to say that you were raised by wolves? We have manners and culture in this family_). But he didn't laugh at me, just beckoned the barman with a practiced flick of his wrist, a cool competence in his actions that heated the blood in my veins.

"Sean," he smiled, extending a hand to me, a lock of pale blonde hair dropping into his oddly dark eyes, before it was dispersed again with a quick shake of his head.

"Sy— Simon," I hastily amended.

I felt the lie rest heavily on his lips but I had no choice, I told myself firmly. I didn't want, I couldn't face bringing my family, my past, my beliefs, my _life_ into this strange world, to let him wonder and question. That's if he had even realised any incongruence or falsity of my name and my actions. I wondered if I had seen the slight raise of an eyebrow but I told myself no.

"And what do you do?" he asked instead, resting his arm on the bar and leaning closer as if anything I had to say could really be worth his attention.

"Erm, I'm a student?" I stuttered awkwardly, hating the upward rise of my voice, the questioning of myself as I tried to find memories of a time when this was not a lie.

"What do you study?" he continued, as if _wanting_ to force me into errors and confusion. But I knew I could handle this now and I smiled my reply.

"Economics." It wasn't completely a lie, more a…misstatement, an embellishment, a reinterpretation. Like _Simon_, or like _there's a lot of interest in this property _or _I'm completely confident in this investment_. A blurring of lines, a smudging of facts, just enough to smooth the edges and clear the path. I _had _studied economics. Not in a theatre lecture or a classroom. Not as my degree, but I had studied it all right, for the best part of three years.

(Late night, taste of cheap instant coffee unavoidable in my mouth, empty cans of red bull (his) and broken blister packs of proplus (also his) lying scattered across the table. Battered textbooks, half-dry highlighters, notebooks filled with unreadable scrawl and chewed up biros, all balanced precariously on the arms of sofas. Some shitty pop station blaring out cheese to everyone else's disgust (_it helps me study_, he'd claim, with wide eyes and pleading smile and they'd shake their heads and concede. It wasn't just me that gave in too easily. It wasn't.) Every time he swore he'd never leave it to the last minute again, every time he swore I wouldn't have to help. And every time I found myself sitting there at 3am singing Beyoncé under my breath and testing Nath on formulas and theories and past papers again. Until the degree exams came round at the end of the third year and I spent half my time wondering how he was doing, if he needed my help, if he was studying alone or if he had found another willing slave.)

"No shit? You must be smart then," and I hated the blush of guilt that worked its way across my face. Sean spotted it of course, but just moved closer, misinterpreting its meaning. "It's alright, you don't have to look so scared. I'm not about to start testing you on Keynes or something." And then I blushed harder and my eyes dropped away.

(_"Fuck Syed, you're wasted on that bullshit Business degree. Explain it me again, not all of us are smart little geniuses like you, c'mon and take some pity on the poor Northern thicko."_

"_Fine then. So you and your tight-fisted mates decide to save more money and buy fewer pies. Are you with me so far?"_

"_Yes! This is exactly what I need. Economic theory for Northerners. Told by a poncey Southerner student who says 'fewer'. Bet you say 'whom' as well don't you?"_

"_Don't be bitter just because you can't talk proper like wot I do. Do you want me to explain this or what?"_

"_Alright boy genius, just keep talking…"_)

Images were running hot and fast through my mind and I swallowed hard.

"Sounds like you know something about it yourself," I mumbled, mostly in the direction of Sean's feet, the smooth polish of black leather a sudden reminder that I was not in a student bar any more.

"Well I am an accountant. And before you give me that look, I'll beg you to stop whatever 'boring accountant' joke you have sitting in that pretty head of yours." He reached up to smooth back a lock of my hair and I felt the rush of blood again, my scalp tingling under the scratch of nails. It made me brave. It made me reckless. I looked straight at him and stepped forward an inch.

"Shame. It was a really good joke. I could tell you it anyway if you like."

"Nah, I think I'll live."

"So you don't want to hear my jokes...are you sure you're not boring?"

He laughed and stared hard at my lips, his tongue poking out the corner of his mouth and yeah, _this_ was what I had needed to see. I made him look like that, and the power of it, the utter _wrongness_ was a stupid intoxicating mess.

"Come back with me and I'll show you just how not boring I am."

I knew my eyes must have widened before I snapped them shut, hoping that this brief respite might give my brain a chance to catch up and for the blood to stop rushing through my ears. I had wanted his attention, I had wanted to feel different, to feel better, and worse, after all that had been. But this…this was so blatant, so unavoidable, so much. I glanced at the guy behind us, the one who Sean had been talking until just a few moments before (and maybe if I hadn't looked up those few moments ago, then he wouldn't be standing here with me and I wouldn't have this decision laid out in front of me, and everything would be easier and better and worse).

"What about him?" I asked, my eyes flicking behind Sean's shoulder. And I hated that I was asking, wondering even as I spoke what I wanted the answer to be. But Sean didn't even turn back, his grin widening as instead he stepped in even closer, our legs brushing against each other, his aftershave filling the space between our bodies.

"You're cuter than him," he stated cooly and I shivered.

(_"Mina was totally eyeing you up all night,"_ he had said only last week. A lifetime ago. I had laughed and shaken my head.

"_She's going out with Younis or did you miss that?"_

"_You're cuter than him," _he had replied and my chest had tightened, my stomach had tensed and my hand had started to tremble._ "That's what all the girls say anyway," _he continued and the pressure inside me lifted. I nearly went back to normal.)

That was enough.

I nodded and turned on my heel, not needing to look behind me. It was more than enough.

Outside he hailed a taxi in that almost irritating way that people only do in films. I started to roll my eyes at him when one pulled up almost immediately and he just smirked. He was so bloody confident and in control of everything that I felt a shot of _wantwantwant_ burst through me, and I didn't know if I wanted him or wanted to _be_ him more.

He dragged an arm over my shoulder, his fingers lightly tracing down the side my neck, leaving goosebumped flesh in their wake. They trailed down and grabbed at the top of my shirt, kneading the shaking muscles hidden within. I wondered if I felt like putty, weak and malleable under his touch. I pushed my feet hard against the floor of the car, keeping me grounded even as the vibrations of the engine hummed upwards through my body. A cough from the driver brought me crashing down. I shook my shoulders, displacing his hand and pushing myself away.

"No. Not..not now," I mumbled, eyes flicking up to the rearview mirror ahead, a sudden burst of panic constricting my chest. But the driver's eyes were blue and his skin was pale and I breathed again. But I didn't move back and neither did he, his hand resting carefree in the small space between us instead, taunting my leg with its relaxed ease.

I sat in the seat, his body too close and not close enough as the confusion and desire and fear blurred my senses. Thoughts nudged at the edges of my mind, thoughts that threatened to trick their way past my defences. _Not now_, was all I could think. Because even then I already knew that afterwards, afterwards I'll have to think about everything. Afterwards I'll be Syed Masood again and everything will have to stop. And start. And there'll be no place to hide. But at that point, sitting next to a strange man in a strange taxi as it moved through streets that still remained strange despite the years, at that point I just wanted to stop thinking, I wanted to stop seeing Nathaniel's face, I wanted not to be Syed Masood.

So when the taxi stopped and Sean stepped outside, then into a building and pushed me up against the wall, I failed to think and just pushed my body into his body, my lips onto his lips, my hand around his belt.

"Not so shy now," he whispered into my mouth, his hands reaching in my hair, gripping at the roots, as he held me tight up close, his tongue licking into my mouth.

I let him guide me, pushing me back into a bedroom, onto a bed. He knew what he was doing and it was an almost shameful relief to be able to be led (another sin, another shame to add to my many), to not have to look and guess and push and find only rejection. He undressed me, he kissed me while I fiddled with buttons and sucked painfully at the long expanse of his neck, watching his pale flesh redden and his eyes darken.

He pulled away, kicking off his jeans, pushing down his boxers, sitting back on his knees at the edge of his bed, his body left open to my eyes. I looked. I feared I might never be able to look away. I looked at the pale skin and pale rough hairs that dragged the attention of my eyes. I looked at the lean arc of muscle in his thighs, the line of flesh that rose from his knee and curved a path upwards. There was a power and a rawness beneath that skin, a roughness that ran through the smooth. My mind was thumping and aching with fears and thoughts. I leant out my hand to him and he took it, letting that power, that rawness, that roughness and that smooth smooth stretch of skin fall down onto me.

His lips were on me and his hands, rubbing and soothing and marking, drowning out all of the buzz in my brain until my eyes began to flutter close, until I had nearly let every muscle relax, until I felt his fingers stop and I looked up awkwardly through half shut eyes to see liquid added to long fingers and…

Oh.

This was going to be…more. And it's not like I couldn't have guessed or that I didn't sort of know somewhere in the back of mind that this could happen.

It's just.

It's just that it is the sort of step that part of me felt should be preceded by careful thought and a clear mind, by sound deliberation and definite understanding. A choice. A decision.

This was not that time. It was a time of anything but.

But.

But I wanted it.

And careful thought and a clear mind would never decide to do this, would never think that this could be anything but wrong.

All I had wanted was to stop thinking, to shut out the outside voices and numb the inner cries, but instead I was being deafened, trapped on these sheets, my body frozen taut, my teeth digging hard into my lip.

Sean halted, his eyes taking on the guise of pity or concern or something else that I didn't want to see again.

"Are you okay?" he asked, his voice oddly gentle, like he was frightened I was going to bolt or scream, like I needed to be handled with kid gloves when all I wanted was for him, for someone, to look at me again like I was some kind of special treat, like I was interesting and tempting and wanted. So I just nodded, taking care not to look directly at his eyes and grabbed his head with my hand, pulling him closer back onto me, licking into his mouth and grinding my body into his. As if I had the first fucking clue what I was doing.

But yeah, that did that trick, as when he pulled back again his eyes were back as before, two hungry pools of desire, filled with simple uncomplicated want. Caused by me. The cries of confusion softened to a low hum in my mind and I smiled, letting my head tip back onto the pillow.

A finger pushed into me and I winced slightly, biting my teeth back hard down onto my bruised lip until the intrusion became something else, something…_good_. And then as I counted breaths, eyes screwed tight shut, there were more fingers, probing and pushing inside as my hands gripped on the sheets beneath. I shifted my hips, he mouthed wet lines down my neck, soft hair brushing against my skin and I gasped.

"Watch." His voice was almost calm as it spoke into the hollow of my collarbone, humming over my hammering pulse. "Watch," he repeated, more forcefully, teeth nipping at my flesh. Eyes followed orders, under compulsion to obey, eyelids slowly dragging upwards to see a sight more graphic more wanton more desperate more fantastical than anything I had let myself imagine. My legs spread apart, two lines of colour lying obscene, two lines of darkness marked against a rumpled mass of milky white sheets. His hand moving into me with unmistakeable ease. I watched, wide-eyed and dry mouthed, tongue desperately moistening my bitten, torn, bruised and swollen lips, as his fingers twisted and my toes curled and my hips bucked helplessly off the bed.

"Fuckfuckfuck." Words like tears fell sodden from my mouth. He was dragging me apart within and now he was pulling me apart from outside.

I slammed my eyes shut again. Lights spun and twisted in the darkness. He laughed, though not unkindly, his breath blowing a heated breeze over the short hairs at the back of my neck.

"You have no idea just how fucking hot you are, do you?"A question asked but thankfully no reply seemed necessary (and what was I supposed to say? what was I supposed to think) as he shifted his body until I found his mouth on mine again, and we kissed desperately, sloppily, with teeth and tongue. I felt his cock hard against my thigh, pressing deep into my flesh and I wanted to touch him, to feel him. I wanted to run my hands over it, gripping him and watching him come undone through me. But I was trapped under his leg, under his arms, under his chest so I settled for the feel of him shaking and pushing against me as my body ached and searched desperately for friction.

I shuddered, feeling the tension coil in my stomach, longing and nearing for release when his fingers abruptly left my body. I gulped in a desperate breath, daring to peer out through half shut lashes only to see sharp white teeth biting off the corner of a packet, condom rolled down himself.

My breath came faster in pants that sounded too fast and too loud to be normal.

This was really happening. My mind was dizzy with the intrusion of thoughts that I never wanted to think; Nathaniel's eyes, Nathaniel's mouth, cool and unresponsive aganst mine, his hands pushing me away. I shut my eyes again.

"Roll over."

Sean's voice was low against my ear, his breath hot on my skin and I obeyed with a shiver. His fingers ran down my back, blunt nails scratching lightly until he raised up my hips.

My body froze. Muscles aching with tension.

His hands stilled.

"This is your first time right?"

"No!" I replied, too loud, too forceful, too fake. With my eyes shut I could see the pity in his eyes. "Yes." I whispered my apology to him, to myself.

"It's okay," he murmured and his hands returned to stroking my back, smoothing their warm slick heat over my chilly flesh. "I'll make it good for you sweetheart." I wondered momentarily if he had forgotten the name that I had told him or if he had realised all along that it was fake. It occurred to me that that ought to make things worse, that _he doesn't know your name and he doesn't even care_, but then I felt him push inside me and I stopped thinking altogether.

It hurt. I couldn't breath, struggling instead to make desperate gulps of air. My knuckles turned white as I tightened my grip on the sheets, the duvet, anything I could find.

"Just relax," he urged in a voice too smooth and sure. "It'll be okay, just wait. It'll be good."

I gave the briefest of nods and waited, his hand on the small of my back as if to keep me there. I concentrated on the feel of his skin, the cool breeze hitting my hair. I waited and then it was good. A slight hurt still, but different, and good, my body aching in ways I had never felt before. An ache that brought pleasure and made me tremble and gasp desperately for air as Sean moved. Somewhere I could hear unrestrained curses and bold wanton cries but all I wanted was to feel the strength of his body on mine, filling me, pounding into me, forcing all other thoughts out and cutting off my senses. I bit down to dampen my voice and pushed my head into the pillow to muffle any gasps. His hand reached to me, gripping and thrusting my pulsing cock as he ruthlessly sent me over the edge with embarrassing ease.

My body ached, sore muscles, sensitive skin, still trembling as he continued to thrust inside. I tried desperately to swallow back the low voiced whimpers until he finally came with a shudder and nameless yell.

His body slumped bonelessly onto the bed next to me, sending springs creaking. I glanced across at the hair clinging damply to his scalp, at the drips of sweat tracing the lines of his muscles and then turned sharply away.

My breathing slowed and I forced calm to enter my mind as the breath entered my lungs. I focused on the pile of my clothes on his floor, a sign of safety and of escape. Part of me wanted to leap up and run out. Part of me wanted to just crawl under the duvet and go to sleep (and even then, even at such a time, a small corner of my mind insisted on wondering what it would feel like to sleep with another body curled around yours, to wake in another's bed, to feel another's eyes on you as you slept, as you dreamt, as you woke). But something had changed and I decided not to be either of those men. I decided to be the man in control of his life. And so I rose and dressed calmly, firming my hand against the trembles and shakes that threatened to arrive. I dressed and turned to the figure still lying in the bed (_his _bed) and nodded firmly, politely, like there were appropriate manners and behaviour for such an occasion (and maybe, in a world unknown to me, there were. And Sean would know them wouldn't he, but that's not the point. The point is, that I have manners. Even now).

"I've got to go," I stated.

"Okay," he replied, with equal solemnity and I steadied my gaze somewhere just below his left cheekbone so that I wouldn't have to see the inevitable laugh in his eyes. "I could call you a taxi if you want?"

"No." Shit. Maybe that was part of the appropriate manners thing. But either way I just needed to go. Now. Calmly and without running. "I mean, thank you but I'm okay," I amended hastily as I edged to the door. Calmly edged.

"Alright then. See you around." And with that Sean lay back in his bed. No seeing me out, no handing of a card. Relief of sorts ran through me. It was definitely relief I told myself, I was relieved because I didn't want anything from him, or any suggestion of seeing him again. He didn't even know my name. I left, and left briskly, heading out onto the street where I called my own taxi and made my own way home.

I had done it. I had crossed a line, and now…now, I decided, now I was going to leave Leeds and leave all this behind. Leave this city with all its mistakes and sin and shame. I'd fallen low and now I would remake myself again. Make my family proud. Make myself clean. Be the son, the man that I was born to be.

Last night, when I got home, I washed. I washed and washed and washed again, until the water ran cold and left signature trails of pimpled skin behind. I washed and threw out the clothes I had been wearing, burying them under teabags and drinks cartons. I washed and prayed and prayed. When I felt dizzy, I sat and breathed in deep. When I felt sick, I drank a glass of water and swallowed it down. When I thought of my sins or of my failings, I turn my head and I prayed. I prayed not for solace yet, but for hope, for the future. I washed and I slept, my mind filled with determined hope and made my way here, to the station, to buy my ticket out of Leeds and back to London. Away from the clubs and the bars and Nat— the people here and back to where I belong.

I don't belong here.

I look forwards at the queue as another person moves up to the counter and we all shuffle obediently forward a few more steps at a time.

One step at a time.

I don't think about work or Sean or Nath.

I think about my family.

I step towards the future.


End file.
